April 2023 Summaries

A new approach to building software is gaining popularity: creating a production-like environment for every new code change a developer wants to introduce. This enables developers to build new features in parallel without affecting each other and makes it possible to do frequent small releases, making it easier to revert changes if something goes wrong. To support this flow, deployment platforms are starting to offer automatic Git integration, allowing teams to set up an isolated production-like environment for every pull request. However, creating a database for every preview environment poses challenges, such as accuracy and performance issues. Neon, a fully managed serverless Postgres, offers a solution by providing a branching feature that creates a production-like database for every branch. This allows developers to create a new database in seconds, eliminating the need for manual setup and management of databases for each preview environment. Teams can use Neon's branching feature along with GitHub Actions and Vercel to automate the process of creating a database for every preview environment, making it easier to manage multiple environments and reduce the risk of errors.

The guide explores creating a database for every preview environment using Neon, GitHub Actions, and Vercel, emphasizing the advantages of preview environments over traditional staging setups. It highlights the challenges of staging environments, such as bottlenecks and integration issues, and contrasts them with the benefits of preview environments, which allow isolated, production-like setups for each code change. The document details Neon’s branching feature that enables rapid creation of isolated database copies for preview environments, thereby facilitating parallel development and frequent small releases. It explains how to use GitHub Actions to automate the creation, deployment, and cleanup of these environments, providing a detailed walkthrough of setting up a demo project using Next.js, Prisma, and Neon, and integrating it with Vercel. The guide also covers maintaining database migrations and managing resources programmatically through Neon’s API for a streamlined CI/CD workflow.

WunderGraph is an open-source Backend for Frontend (BFF) Framework designed to optimize Developer Workflows through API Composition, allowing developers to compose multiple APIs into a single unified interface and generate typesafe API clients. A newly released integration with Neon enables seamless syncing of database settings and automatic setting of the database connection string on WunderGraph Cloud, a managed service for deploying WunderGraph APIs. The integration aims to bring the best Developer Experience (DX) to users by aligning with WunderGraph's vision of a serverless world and leveraging the ease of use and fluidity of Neon's Postgres implementation.

WunderGraph, an open-source Backend for Frontend (BFF) framework, has introduced a new integration with Neon to enhance developer workflows through API composition by allowing developers to combine multiple APIs into a single interface and generate typesafe API clients. This integration, available on WunderGraph Cloud, automatically synchronizes Neon database settings and sets up the database connection string, capitalizing on Neon's serverless Postgres capabilities to fit into a serverless vision. The collaboration aims to improve developer experience (DX) by providing easy-to-use, clean UI and fluid DX without a steep learning curve, as Neon is based on the widely used Postgres. Stefan Avram from WunderGraph and Nikita Shamgunov, CEO at Neon, both express enthusiasm for the partnership, highlighting their shared goal of enhancing software development productivity for developers.