101 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
101 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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stage: none
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group: Documentation Guidelines
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info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
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description: Learn how documentation review apps work.
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---
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# Documentation review apps
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If you're a GitLab team member and your merge request contains documentation changes, you can use a review app to preview
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how they would look if they were deployed to the [GitLab Docs site](https://docs.gitlab.com).
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Review apps are enabled for the following projects:
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- [GitLab](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab)
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- [Omnibus GitLab](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab)
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- [GitLab Runner](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner)
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- [GitLab Charts](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts/gitlab)
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Alternatively, check the [`gitlab-docs` development guide](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/blob/main/README.md#development-when-contributing-to-gitlab-documentation)
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or [the GDK documentation](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-development-kit/blob/main/doc/howto/gitlab_docs.md)
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to render and preview the documentation locally.
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## How to trigger a review app
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If a merge request has documentation changes, use the `review-docs-deploy` manual job
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to deploy the documentation review app for your merge request.
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The `review-docs-deploy*` job triggers a cross project pipeline and builds the
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docs site with your changes. When the pipeline finishes, the review app URL
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appears in the merge request widget. Use it to navigate to your changes.
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You must have the Developer role in the project. Users without the Developer role, such
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as external contributors, cannot run the manual job. In that case, ask someone from
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the GitLab team to run the job.
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## Technical aspects
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If you want to know the in-depth details, here's what's really happening:
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1. You manually run the `review-docs-deploy` job in a merge request.
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1. The job runs the [`scripts/trigger-build.rb`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/scripts/trigger-build.rb)
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script with the `docs deploy` flag, which triggers the "Triggered from `gitlab-org/gitlab` 'review-docs-deploy' job"
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pipeline trigger in the `gitlab-org/gitlab-docs` project for the `$DOCS_BRANCH` (defaults to `main`).
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1. The preview URL is shown both at the job output and in the merge request
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widget. You also get the link to the remote pipeline.
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1. In the `gitlab-org/gitlab-docs` project, the pipeline is created and it
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[skips the test jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/blob/8d5d5c750c602a835614b02f9db42ead1c4b2f5e/.gitlab-ci.yml#L50-55)
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to lower the build time.
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1. Once the docs site is built, the HTML files are uploaded as artifacts.
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1. A specific runner tied only to the docs project, runs the Review App job
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that downloads the artifacts and uses `rsync` to transfer the files over
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to a location where NGINX serves them.
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The following GitLab features are used among others:
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- [Manual jobs](../../ci/jobs/job_control.md#create-a-job-that-must-be-run-manually)
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- [Multi project pipelines](../../ci/pipelines/downstream_pipelines.md#multi-project-pipelines)
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- [Review Apps](../../ci/review_apps/index.md)
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- [Artifacts](../../ci/yaml/index.md#artifacts)
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- [Specific runner](../../ci/runners/runners_scope.md#prevent-a-specific-runner-from-being-enabled-for-other-projects)
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- [Merge request pipelines](../../ci/pipelines/merge_request_pipelines.md)
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## Troubleshooting review apps
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### Review app returns a 404 error
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If the review app URL returns a 404 error, either the site is not
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yet deployed, or something went wrong with the remote pipeline. You can:
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- Wait a few minutes and it should appear online.
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- Check the manual job's log and verify the URL. If the URL is different, try the
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one from the job log.
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- Check the status of the remote pipeline from the link in the merge request's job output.
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If the pipeline failed or got stuck, GitLab team members can ask for help in the `#docs`
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chat channel. Contributors can ping a technical writer in the merge request.
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### Not enough disk space
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Sometimes the review app server is full and there is no more disk space. Each review
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app takes about 570MB of disk space.
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A cron job to remove review apps older than 20 days runs hourly,
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but the disk space still occasionally fills up. To manually free up more space,
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a GitLab technical writing team member can:
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1. Navigate to the [`gitlab-docs` schedules page](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/pipeline_schedules).
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1. Select the play button for the `Remove old review apps from review app server`
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schedule. By default, this cleans up review apps older than 14 days.
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1. Navigate to the [pipelines page](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/pipelines)
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and start the manual job called `clean-pages`.
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If the job says no review apps were found in that period, edit the `CLEAN_REVIEW_APPS_DAYS`
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variable in the schedule, and repeat the process above. Gradually decrease the variable
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until the free disk space reaches an acceptable amount (for example, 3GB).
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Remember to set it to 14 again when you're done.
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There's an issue to [migrate from the DigitalOcean server to GCP buckets](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/issues/735)),
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which should solve the disk space problem.
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