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Getting Started

Introduction

Uffizzi is a platform that lets you preview pull requests before merging. Create on-demand Preview Environments for APIs, frontends, backends, databases, and microservices. Each Preview Environment gets a secure HTTPS URL that is continually refreshed when you push new commits. Uffizzi also handles clean up, so your environments last only as long as you need them.

You can also use Uffizzi to create demo environments, debugging environments, release candidate environments, or to replace your team's shared QA or Staging environment.

Quickstart (~ 1 minute )

Get started using Uffizzi Preview Environments in 3 simple steps...

1. Fork the quickstart repo

Fork the quickstart repo on GitHub. Be sure to uncheck the option Copy the main branch only. This ensures that the try-uffizzi branch will be included in your fork.

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2. Enable GitHub Actions workflows for your fork

Select Actions, then select I understand my workflows, go ahead and enable them. GitHub Actions is free for public repositories.

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3. Open a pull request for try-uffizzi branch against main in your fork

Be sure that you're opening a PR on the branches of your fork (i.e. your-account/main ← your-account/try-uffizzi). If you try to open a PR for UffizziCloud/main ← your-account/try-uffizzi, the Actions workflow will not run in this example.

That's it! This will kick off a GitHub Actions workflow and post the Preview Environment URL as a comment to your PR issue.

uffizzi-bot

What to expect

The PR will trigger a GitHub Actions workflow that creates a Uffizzi Preview Environment for the microservices application defined by this repo. The Preview Environment URL will be posted as a comment in your PR issue when the workflow completes, along with a link to the Uffizzi Dashboard where you can view application logs. The Preview Environment and comment is deleted when the PR is merged/closed or after 1 hour (configurable).

How it works

Configuration

Previews are configured with a Docker Compose template that describes the application configuration and a GitHub Actions workflow that includes a series of jobs triggered by a pull_request event and subsequent push events:

  1. Build and push images to a container registry
  2. Render a Docker Compose file from the Docker Compose template and the built images
  3. Deploy the application (per the Docker Compose file) to a Uffizzi Preview Environment and post a comment to the PR issue
  4. Delete the Preview Environment when the PR is merged/closed or after 1h

Uffizzi Cloud

Running this workflow will create a Uffizzi Cloud account and project from your GitHub user and repo information, respectively. If you sign in to the Uffizzi Dashboard you can view logs, password protect your Preview Environments, manage projects and team members, set role-based access controls, and configure single-sign on (SSO).

Each account receives 10,000 preview minutes per month for free. If you exceed this amount, your Preview Environments will be paused unless you add a credit card. See our pricing for details. Alternatively, you can install open-source Uffizzi if you have your own Kubernetes cluster.

Set up Uffizzi for your application

Now that you know how Uffizzi works, set up Uffizzi for your application or service ➡️.