DevOps Patterns

Modern DevOps patterns for infrastructure and deployment automation.

Platform Selection

Frontend Hosting

Platform	Best For	Pricing
Vercel	Next.js, React	Free tier, $20/user pro
Netlify	Static, Jamstack	Free tier, $19/user pro
Cloudflare Pages	Edge-first	Generous free tier

Backend Hosting

Platform	Best For	Pricing
Railway	Rapid deployment	$5 hobby, $20 pro + usage
Fly.io	Global edge	Pay-as-you-go (~$3/small VM)
Render	Managed services	Free tier, $7+ for services
AWS ECS	Enterprise scale	Usage-based

When to Use What

Scenario	Recommendation
Startup/MVP	Railway or Render
Next.js app	Vercel
Global low-latency	Fly.io
Enterprise/complex	AWS or GCP
Cost-sensitive	Fly.io or self-hosted

Reference Files

Topic	Load	Use When
Docker	references/docker-patterns.md	Containerization
CI/CD	references/ci-cd.md	GitHub Actions, pipelines
Cloud deployment	references/cloud-deployment.md	Vercel, Railway, AWS
Kubernetes	references/kubernetes.md	K8s manifests, Helm
Monitoring	references/monitoring.md	Prometheus, Grafana, logging
IaC	references/infrastructure-as-code.md	Terraform, Pulumi

Quick Start Patterns

Dockerfile (Node.js)

FROM node:20-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:20-alpine AS runner
WORKDIR /app
RUN addgroup -g 1001 -S nodejs && adduser -S nodejs -u 1001
COPY --from=builder --chown=nodejs:nodejs /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=builder --chown=nodejs:nodejs /app/node_modules ./node_modules
USER nodejs
EXPOSE 3000
HEALTHCHECK CMD wget -q --spider http://localhost:3000/health || exit 1
CMD ["node", "dist/main.js"]

GitHub Actions (CI)

name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run test
      - run: npm run build

Docker Compose (Development)

version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:postgres@db:5432/app
      - REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379
    depends_on:
      - db
      - redis

  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
      POSTGRES_DB: app
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

volumes:
  postgres_data:

Environment Strategy

┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Local Development                       │
│ - docker-compose up                    │
│ - .env.local                           │
├────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Preview/Staging                         │
│ - Auto-deploy on PR                    │
│ - Unique preview URLs                  │
│ - Separate database                    │
├────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Production                             │
│ - Deploy on main merge                 │
│ - Blue-green or rolling                │
│ - Production secrets                   │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘

CI/CD Principles

1. Fast feedback - Quick tests first, fail fast
2. Parallel execution - Speed up pipelines
3. Dependency caching - Reduce build time
4. Environment secrets - Never commit credentials
5. Automated deployments - Push-to-deploy workflow
6. Preview environments - Test before merge

Security Checklist

• Secrets in vault (not in code)
• Non-root container user
• Image vulnerability scanning
• HTTPS/TLS everywhere
• Least privilege IAM
• Environment isolation
• Audit logging enabled

Container Best Practices

1. Multi-stage builds - Smaller final images
2. Alpine/distroless base - Minimal attack surface
3. Non-root user - Security isolation
4. Health checks - Container health monitoring
5. .dockerignore - Exclude unnecessary files
6. Layer caching - Optimize build order