Track deployments via GitHub Deployments API

[Copilot]

Implementation Complete: GitHub Deployments for SRCCON ✅

Objective Achieved

Deployments are now tracked in GitHub's Deployments section with auto-increment behavior on each merge to main or staging branches, making them easily visible instead of only in the Actions tab.

Decision: GitHub Deployments (not Releases)

✅ GitHub Deployments chosen because:

• Purpose-built for deployment tracking
• Support multiple environments (staging, production)
• Show deployment history and status in GitHub UI
• Auto-increment with each deployment
• Better fit than Releases (which are for versioned software artifacts)

Implementation Complete

• Update .github/workflows/deploy.yml to create GitHub Deployment events
  • Add deployment creation step before S3 sync
  • Add deployment status update (success/failure) after deployment
  • Configure environment names (staging, production)
  • Add deployments: write permission
  • Fix environment URLs to use proper S3 website endpoint and production domain
  • Add deployment ID existence checks in failure status updates
  • Fix step IDs to use underscores instead of hyphens for proper referencing
• Update documentation (README.md) to mention Deployments
  • Added deployment tracking info to Branch Strategy section
  • Added links to Deployments tab in staging/production sections
  • Updated workflow description to mention deployment tracking
  • Fixed deployment links to use absolute URLs
• Validate YAML and run tests ✅
• Address all code review feedback ✅
• Security scan (CodeQL) passed ✅
• Test staging deployment workflow (requires merge to staging branch)
• Test production deployment workflow (requires merge to main branch)
• Verify deployments appear in GitHub UI under Deployments tab

Changes Made

1. .github/workflows/deploy.yml (~95 lines modified):

   • Added deployments: write permission
   • Create deployment before S3 sync (staging/production)
   • Update deployment status after deployment completes
   • Proper error handling for failure scenarios
   • Fixed step IDs: deployment_staging and deployment_production (using underscores)

2. README.md (+6 lines):

   • Document GitHub Deployments integration
   • Add absolute links to Deployments tab
   • Update workflow descriptions

Benefits

• ✨ Better Visibility: Deployments in dedicated GitHub section
• 📊 Environment Tracking: Staging vs Production separation
• 📜 Deployment History: Timeline and status at a glance
• 🔗 Direct Links: URL to deployed site in each deployment
• ✅ Status Tracking: Success/failure for each deployment
• 🔄 Auto-increment: Each merge creates new deployment entry

Testing Results

• ✅ YAML validation passed
• ✅ Jekyll build successful
• ✅ All lint checks passed
• ✅ All tests passed
• ✅ Code review feedback addressed (step IDs and README links fixed)
• ✅ Security scan (CodeQL) passed

Next Steps

1. Merge this PR to the branch
2. Test by merging to staging branch - check Deployments tab
3. Test by merging to main branch - check Deployments tab
4. Verify deployment URLs work correctly

Original prompt

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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Rework main deployment to increment a release</issue_title>
<issue_description>Auto-increment based on merges to main.</issue_description>

<agent_instructions>Valid merges to staging and main branches are published to a a static site hosted on S3. These can be seen in the Actions tab, but I'd like to see them under either Deployments or Releases as a datestamped "latest" publishing event. Decide which is the better association within GitHub's features and draft the work.</agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

• Fixes Rework main deployment to increment a release #430

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✨ Let Copilot coding agent set things up for you — coding agent works faster and does higher quality work when set up for your repo.

[tiffehr]

👍 let's give it a try on staging.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds GitHub Deployments API tracking to the existing Jekyll-to-S3/CloudFront deployment workflow so staging/production publishes show up in the repo’s Deployments UI (with environment URLs), and documents how to view that status from the README.

Changes:

• Add GitHub Deployments creation + success/failure status updates to .github/workflows/deploy.yml.
• Grant deployments: write permission to the deploy workflow.
• Update README.md to reference the Deployments tab and describe the new tracking behavior.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

File	Description
.github/workflows/deploy.yml	Creates deployment records and posts deployment statuses (success/failure) with environment URLs.
README.md	Documents deployment tracking and adds links intended to point to the Deployments tab.

[Copilot]

The step IDs deployment-staging / deployment-production contain hyphens, but later they’re referenced with dot-notation (steps.deployment-staging...). In GitHub Actions expressions, IDs with - must be accessed with bracket syntax (e.g. steps['deployment-staging'].outputs.result) or renamed to use _. As written, deployment_id will not resolve correctly and the status update will fail.

[tiffehr]

@copilot apply changes based on this feedback, this feedback, this feedback, which are all pretty much the same issue.

[Copilot]

Fixed in commit 8e0f17b:

Step IDs: Changed from deployment-staging/deployment-production to deployment_staging/deployment_production (using underscores instead of hyphens). This allows proper dot-notation access in GitHub Actions expressions.

README links: Changed from relative ../../deployments to absolute https://github.com/OpenNews/srccon/deployments to ensure the links work correctly from any viewing context.

All references throughout the workflow have been updated to use the new step IDs.

[Copilot]

👍 let's give it a try on staging.

Ready for testing! The workflow will create GitHub Deployment records when merged to staging. You'll be able to see them at https://github.com/OpenNews/srccon/deployments with the staging environment URL and deployment status.