gitlab-org / gitlab-discussions-

Frontend Development

This outline covers the frontend development practices for the GitLab Discussions project, hosted on GitLab at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-discussions-.

Frontend Architecture

The frontend for GitLab Discussions is built using Vue.js and its ecosystem. The primary goal is to provide a robust and performant user interface for engaging in discussions within GitLab.

Vue.js Components

The application is composed of numerous Vue.js components, each responsible for a specific portion of the user interface. Components are organized into a hierarchy, with parent components managing and displaying child components. This approach promotes modularity and code reusability.

Example: The DiscussionThread component might display a single discussion thread with its comments, reactions, and actions like adding a comment or marking a comment as resolved.

Vuex State Management

The Vuex library is used to manage the application’s global state. This includes data such as the current user’s information, the list of discussions, and the content of individual comments. Vuex provides a centralized store and actions to ensure consistent data access and modification across different components.

Example: When a user creates a new comment, a Vuex action updates the global state with the new comment data. This ensures that all components reflecting the discussion thread are synchronized with the latest changes.

Development Workflow

The development workflow follows GitLab Flow, emphasizing a strong focus on continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).

GitLab Flow

  1. Feature Branches: Developers create feature branches for new features or bug fixes.
  2. Merge Requests: Developers submit merge requests to the main branch, allowing code review and discussion before merging.
  3. CI/CD Pipelines: Automated CI/CD pipelines run on every commit to the feature branch and merge request, ensuring code quality and building and deploying the application.

Branching Strategy

The following branching strategy is used:

  1. Main Branch: The main branch always reflects the production state of the application.
  2. Feature Branches: Short-lived branches for individual features, bug fixes, or refactoring.
  3. Release Branches: Long-lived branches to prepare for a new release.

Code Style and Linting

To maintain code consistency and quality, the following tools are used:

  1. ESLint: Enforces JavaScript code style and quality guidelines.
  2. Prettier: Formats code consistently, ensuring a uniform code style across the project.

Testing

Comprehensive testing is crucial to ensuring the quality and reliability of the GitLab Discussions frontend.

Unit Tests

Unit tests are written using the Vue Testing Library and Jest to verify the functionality of individual components and functions. These tests focus on isolating and testing specific units of code.

Example: Unit tests for a CommentInput component might verify that the component properly handles user input, submits comments to the backend, and displays error messages when necessary.

Integration Tests

Integration tests verify the interactions between different parts of the application. These tests ensure that components and services work correctly together to achieve the intended functionality.

Example: An integration test might simulate a user creating a new comment and verify that the comment is correctly displayed in the discussion thread, and the user’s comment count is updated accordingly.

End-to-End Tests

End-to-end (E2E) tests use a browser automation tool like Cypress to simulate real user interactions and verify that the entire application flows as expected. E2E tests help to catch potential issues that may not be detected by unit or integration tests.

Example: An E2E test might simulate a user creating a new discussion, adding a comment, editing the comment, and deleting the discussion. The test would verify that all these actions are completed successfully and the application state is consistent throughout the process.

Deployment

The application is deployed to GitLab Pages, leveraging the CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments.

Deployment Pipeline

The deployment pipeline is configured in the .gitlab-ci.yml file. The pipeline consists of the following stages:

  1. Build: Builds the application and generates the production assets.
  2. Test: Runs all unit, integration, and E2E tests.
  3. Deploy: Deploys the application to GitLab Pages.

Frontend Development Resources

This outline provides a high-level overview of the frontend development practices for GitLab Discussions. It is crucial to refer to the GitLab project repository and related documentation for a more in-depth understanding of the codebase and its implementation.