Skip to content

field notes · cloud

Configuration-less DevOps

Configuration-less DevOpsAn isometric drawing of a deploy line. On the left a laptop pushes a branch, drawn as a commit card on a track. The card passes three gates labelled tests, types and browser, each of which lifts when its check passes. Behind the track, a preview building pops up for the branch with a link flag and a reviewer beside it. On the right the track runs into a production building with a release sign on its roof. In front of production are the real database and a smaller database copy, and a rollback lever. Push a branch to watch the gates lift and the preview appear. Merge folds the preview away, runs the migration on the copy and then on the real data, and production moves to the next release. Roll back pulls the lever and production returns to the previous release. Break a test keeps the tests gate shut, so nothing deploys.your branchmain, livemergeteststypesbrowserproductionno branch yetrelease 12$ git push1234567

Deploys that need nobody to babysit them.

In short

Configuration-less DevOps means your team deploys by pushing to Git and the platform does the rest. It suits Laravel and Next.js teams with no DevOps hire. Zenoware, a small Auckland studio, moves apps onto Laravel Cloud, Forge, Vapor or Vercel, gives each branch a preview environment and adds checks that have to pass before a deploy. We start with a free call about how you ship today.

What you get

  • If a release goes wrong, you roll it back

  • Anyone reviewing gets a link to try the change

  • Migrations run on a database copy before real data

How it runs

  1. 01

    Audit

    We ask whoever deploys now to walk us through it.

  2. 02

    Move

    Then the app moves to a managed platform that suits it, in stages.

  3. 03

    Previews

    Branches get their own environments, which vanish after the merge.

  4. 04

    Gates

    Tests, type checks and browser tests all have to pass first.

Who you'll work with

JP Caparas

JP Caparas

Founder and lead engineer

Thirteen years of principal engineering, including development lead at Public Trust. OpenAI Codex and Devin ambassador in New Zealand. You talk to the person who writes the code.

About the team

Questions

What is configuration-less DevOps?

Letting a platform carry the deployment work so your developers don't. Vercel and Laravel Cloud already build, scale, renew certificates and make preview links. We pick the settings, add the checks, document it, and step back.

What is a preview environment?

It's a copy of your app built from one branch, with its own URL, so people can try a change before it merges. The good ones use production's routing and environment variables, get their own database copy and disappear when the branch closes.

Does Vercel create preview deployments automatically?

Yes, once you connect the repository. Every push to a branch that isn't production is built and given its own URL, which is the easy part; getting previews to behave like production and blocking merges until checks pass is where the time goes.

What is the difference between Laravel Forge, Vapor and Laravel Cloud?

Forge sets up servers in your own cloud account and manages them, so they're still yours. Vapor puts Laravel on AWS Lambda. Laravel Cloud is fully managed by Laravel itself, and you never touch a server.

What is the difference between serverless and PaaS?

A PaaS keeps your app running on servers it looks after. Serverless only runs code when a request comes in and bills per use. That's cheap for bursty traffic, though long jobs and constant heavy load often cost less on a normal server.

Will my site go down while it moves to a new platform?

Not for long, if at all. We move in stages, test the new platform before switching DNS and leave the old servers running in case we need to point traffic back.

Tell us what isn't working.

The first call is free, and we'll tell you straight whether we're the right people for it.

Start a project