Add a test environment

A test environment is a second copy of your project, with a copy of every database your production serves: your own, and one for each client you have onboarded. You try new features and bug fixes there, on real data, without touching the live databases. When you are happy, you merge to main and the same code reaches production.

Adding a test environment, start to finish. The waiting is played fast; the video has no sound.

Why you want one

• Real data, not an empty database. Bugs show up on your clients’ own data, and a new feature can be judged against what is really there.
• Nothing you do reaches production. The copies are separate databases on separate servers. Delete a record, break a module, run a migration: the live databases do not notice.
• Nothing leaves the building. Mail, scheduled actions and payments are switched off in the copies, so a test cannot email a client or take a payment.

How a change gets to production

Once a test environment exists, your Git branches map onto your environments:

1. Work on dev. Every push builds your image and checks that Odoo starts with it.
2. The test environment runs that image. Each push to dev is deployed to it, so you open the test addresses and try the change on the copies of your databases.
3. Release. When you are happy, fast-forward main to dev and push, exactly as in Getting Started. Production gets the image you just tested. Nothing is rebuilt.

If no test environment exists, a push to dev still builds and tests the image. It is simply not deployed anywhere until there is one.

Before you start

You need a project that is Ready. To have clients in the copy, onboard them first: see Onboard a client.

1. Add the environment

In the portal, open Projects, then your project. Under Add an environment, choose test and press Create.

The project page lists the new environment straight away. Behind the scenes the platform copies every database, switches off mail, scheduled actions and payments in each copy, and only then starts the servers.

2. Wait for it to run

The environment moves from Setting up… to Running. That takes several minutes.

The addresses are published a moment later: for the first minute or two after it reads Running, opening one may show an error page. Refresh and it appears.

3. Open the copies

The project’s own copy has the address https://<project>.test.ordomatics.com. Each client keeps the address it has in production, with test after the project name:

	Production	Test environment
Your project	https://ged.ordomatics.com	https://ged.test.ordomatics.com
A client called Baobab	https://baobab.ged.ordomatics.com	https://baobab.ged.test.ordomatics.com

Sign in with the same accounts you use in production: it is a copy of the same data.

Open the environment’s own page (Edit on its card) to see all the copies, each with its address and status.

4. Try your change

Push to dev and watch the test environment pick up the new image. Open the addresses above and test it on the copy of your own database and of each client that matters.

Afterwards

On the environment’s page, each copy has:

• Refresh: replaces that copy with a fresh copy of your live data. Do this before a new round of testing: a copy is a snapshot taken when the environment was created.
• Erase: empties the copy and reinstalls a fresh Ordomatics, for starting from nothing.
• Pause and Delete: stop serving one copy, or remove it.

Pause servers stops the whole environment without losing anything, and Resume servers brings it back. Remove, at the bottom of the left column, deletes the environment: its servers, its addresses and its copy of your data. You confirm by typing your project’s name. Your live environment is untouched.

Note

A client you onboard after the environment was created is not in it, because the copy was taken earlier. Remove the environment and add it again to bring that client in.

Caution

Every environment runs its own servers, so it uses memory that the platform has to find. Pause or remove a test environment when you are not using it.