I was asked by email what my current CI setup is, and did I have a blog post about it.  Um, actually, no.  Oops.  So, here it is.  As always, it’s a work in process, and there are lots of unfinished rough edges.  It’s also got some phenomenally cool stuff too  Thus, without further ado, my current setup for Continuous Integration:

CruiseControl.NET which runs on SVN commit that runs an NAnt build script which runs:

– MSBuild on one or more solutions

– aspnet_compiler.exe on all the websites (to validate the code in the markup)

– Use YUI Compressor to compress CSS files and compress and combine JavaScript files (yes, the irony isn’t lost here)

– NUnit tests including:

  – Fire up Cassini on each site and insure a carefully selected page doesn’t blow chunks.  (e.g. no configuration or initialization errors on each site.)

  – Database / code integrity checks like do the enum values match the lookup table content.  (I realize they’re mostly integration tests, and cheesy at that, but it’s a far cry better than the previous state of zero tests and “hope it works out” deployment.)

– Deploy content to test server(s), calling iisreset and stopping / restarting services as necessary.

– Label the CI build via svnrevisionlabeler (so the build number in CCTray matches the SVN version number).

– Email out to those who want the spam how the build did.  (Personally I prefer data pull mechanisms like CCTray.)

There’s also an SVN commit trigger that generates a commit email and sends it out.

That’s what I’ve got now.

What I want to add to this (given another 257 hours in the day):

– JSLint validation of .js files and hopefully script tags in html

– CSS validation of .css files and hopefully style tags in html

– HTML validation to match the page’s doctype of .aspx and .html pages

– SEO evaluation of .aspx and .html pages by crawling the site

– Database migration via Tarantino or RedGate’s Sql Compare Pro & Sql Data Compare Pro

Once I’ve got these in place, I’ll be confident that the code functions and is of descent quality before I deploy it to the test servers. Granted, I haven’t validated that it functions correctly, only that it functions completely. The next step will be to look to Selenium Grid to validate JS works cross-browser and that various pages function as expected. I hope by then I can also kick-start the the idea that writing unit tests to validate the code functions as expected is also a good idea.

Add a bit of duct tape, a sprinkle of insanity, and that’s my CI setup.  Cheers.

Rob