Is it possible to have the database from production sync back to the develop database (or create an interface to do this)? That way we can test using live data?
Once we have password reset / emails being sent to users, we can utilize something like mailtrap.io to prevent users from receiving email from the staging site.
Possible workflow:
- Merge PR in to develop
- develop branch triggers circleci
- circleci FIRST syncs the data from live
- then updates the files (running any migrations after syncing)
(if there's too much risk of data pollution / corruption from changes to DB structure)
- Create a control panel with buttons to do the following:
- Sync DB from Prod -> Staging
- Forced redeploy
- Any other items you think might be useful