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Host your app from the web page, screen by screen — the recipe

You can have CitiXsys run your app's outside service with no command: on the developer site's hosting page you sign in with GitHub, say which repository and app, name the customer, choose a plan, pay, and watch the app go live. This recipe walks every screen of that page with a real example, so you know what each box wants before you reach it. It is for anyone whose company has a hosting account with CitiXsys: an iVendNext Partner, a licensed customer's IT team, CitiXsys's own teams.

The example. A company whose maker word is acme hosts the kit's S18 sample, started as ACME RLG, for its customer acme-stores. Put your own names where the example has acme.

Before you start

Have these four things ready. The page asks for each one.

  1. Your app, made with the kit. For the example, from the kit's folder:

    python3 tools/manifest/start.py s18_rule_guard --prefix "ACME RLG"

    It makes the folder apps/acme_rlg in your repository, with the app's app.json in it.

  2. Your app in a GitHub repository made from the kit (your copy of the kit, where start.py put the app), with the kit's workflow copied in: tools/deploy_app/hosting-workflow.yml goes to .github/workflows/ in that repository. For the example, the repository is acme/acme-apps.

  3. The iVendNext App Hosting GitHub App installed on that repository: open https://github.com/apps/ivendnext-app-hosting/installations/new, choose your account or organisation, choose Only select repositories, tick the repository, and press Install. The App can write the repository's Actions variables and nothing else; it never reads your code. With it, the page lists your repository, fills in its sign-in subject and sets its Variables for you.

  4. Your settings' values and the customer's code. Your app.json names your app's plain settings; the page shows each with a line saying what it is. The customer's code is the one its Made for you shelf goes by in the App library: the code you name when you publish to that customer. Ask your account team if you do not have it.

If your GitHub login is not yet linked to your company's hosting account, the page says so when you sign in: ask your partner manager to link it.

The page, screen by screen

Open https://developer.ivendnext.com/hosting. The form is at the top, under Order hosting from this page. After each Next, the page brings the next step into view.

Sign in with GitHub

  1. Press Sign in with GitHub. The first time, GitHub asks you to authorise iVendNext App Hosting: press Authorize.
  2. Back on the page, the box says Signed in as your GitHub login for your company. If your login orders for more than one company, choose it under You order for and press Use this one. What you pay is that company's price.

1. Your app

  1. Repository: choose acme/acme-apps from the list. Not in the list? Type it in Or type it and press Tab. The page looks it up and fills in Its sign-in subject. If it cannot see the repository, it says so: check the name, or install the App on it and press Look again, or paste the line the command it shows prints on your computer.

  2. Branch: main, or the branch your workflow pushes from.

  3. Folder that holds app.json: apps/acme_rlg

  4. app.json: press Choose file and pick apps/acme_rlg/app.json, or paste the file's text into the box.

  5. The page shows the app's name, version and kind, then one box per setting. For the example, the two marked (required):

    • Setting IVN_LIBRARY_APP (required): acme_rlg (the id you publish the app under in the App library)
    • Setting RGD_PREFIX (required): ACME RLG (the prefix you gave start.py)

    Leave the others empty unless you need them.

  6. Press Next.

2. Your customer

  1. Choose Built for a customer and type acme-stores (or choose Not for a customer for an app of your own).
  2. Press Next.

3. Plan, copies and terms

  1. Choose the plan. Starter runs a production copy and a sandbox copy; Standard and Managed add a staging copy. One order runs the copies you tick at the plan's one price.
  2. Choose how to pay: Pay monthly by card, or An invoice with payment terms and the address the invoices go to.
  3. Read the App Hosting Schedule (the link opens it) and tick I accept the App Hosting Schedule.
  4. Press Check the order. The hosting checks it, reserving nothing, and answers with the app's addresses and its price, or names what to change.
  5. Press Next.

4. Pay

  1. Press Order. With a card, press Pay by card: Stripe's checkout opens in a new tab. Pay there, then come back to this tab. With an invoice, it is sent to the address you gave; the app is built once it is paid.

5. Follow it to live

  1. The page shows each copy and where it stands: waiting for the payment, being built, built, waiting for its secrets and its first version, live.
  2. Your GitHub workflow: press Set them on your repository. The page sets the Variables your workflow needs on the order's repository. If it cannot (the App is not installed there), it lists each one with a Copy button: set them under Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions > Variables in your repository.
  3. Your app's secrets (a container's "secret": true settings): type each value in its box for each copy and press Set. The value is sent once and never shown again.
  4. Push to your branch. Each copy gets the version in your app.json and goes live.
  5. Once every copy is live, the page shows the Publish button and the publish.py command: put the app on your customer's shelf from there. The hosting page itself never publishes.

Later

What is refused, and why

The same order with the kit's command, and every rule behind these steps: chapter 14b.

This page in the kit