Deploy using a pipeline (V1)

Pipelines on Northflank allow you to create and manage complex workflows, deploying your code in different stages for development, testing, and production.

Combined with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), pipelines offer an incredible amount of flexibility to support your development process.

Pipelines are specific to projects, you can only use built images and deployment services from the project containing your pipeline.

To set your development pipeline up, create a new pipeline and drag deployment services from the pipeline menu into stages. Deployment services can only be used in one pipeline, if you do not have any available, create new deployment services with Northflank as the source.

Linking a branch or pull request means that your deployment will use the latest built commit from that branch or pull request, provided you have configured the build rules to monitor it and that CI is enabled. Without any configured build rules Northflank will build every commit to the repository.

To link a branch or pull request select the build service from the pipeline menu that contains the repository you want to use builds from. From the build selection menu, view either branches or pull requests and click the link button next to the branch or pull request you want to link. Find the deployment service you want to link with the branch or pull request and deploy the build. You can now click back to continue linking other services, or close the build selection menu.

As long as there is a successful build from the linked branch or pull request, the service will deploy that built image.

If deploy latest is enabled, the service will always use the most recent successfully built commit on that branch or pull request. If it is disabled, it will continue to use the current build and ignore future builds, until a new one is manually set or deploy latest is re-enabled. You will be unable to toggle deploy latest on if there is no successful build in the linked service.

To deploy a specific build select the build service from the pipeline menu that contains the repository you want to use builds from. Find the build you want to deploy in the build selection menu, click the deploy build button , and select the deployment in the stage you want to use. The service will now restart using the selected build and build latest will be toggled off by default.

If you enable build latest after manually deploying a build, the service will begin deploying the latest commits to the branch or pull request that contains the currently deployed build.

You can manage your pipeline's stages by adding deployment service to different stages. Drag and drop deployment services from the pipeline menu to the stage you want to add them to.

You can move a service to a different stage by clicking the options button on the service card in the pipeline, however this will break all current links.

You can click the domains button to view a list of active domains associated with that deployment.

To link deployments, click the link button on the first deployment in the chain you want to create, and then click on the deployment in the next stage you want to link it to.

Deployments can be linked to multiple other deployments, as long as they are in subsequent stages.

Moving a deployment to another stage will break its current links.

To unlink deployments, click the link button on the first deployment in the chain you want to create, and then click the unlink button on the deployment in the next stage you want to unlink it from.

You can remove all links a deployment by clicking the options button on the deployment card in the pipeline and selecting unlink all.

You can promote a build from a deployment service in one stage to a linked deployment service in a subsequent stage by clicking the promote button on the previous service in the link.

This will replace the currently deployed build on the linked deployment service, restarting it with the promoted build.

You can remove a deployment from a pipeline by clicking the options button on the service card.

Removing a deployment from the pipeline will not unlink its build service or external deployment, nor pause the service. You can edit or disable the deployment itself from its own dashboard.