Rails 3.1 asset pipeline production w/out javascript runtime environment

Question

I am struggling with the idea of deploying a large app using the the asset pipeline and the precompile Capistrano task.

I don't want to install the javascript runtime environment and precompile the assets on each production server.
The assets need to be uploaded to two Nginx servers that don't have a copy of the app.

So I have created a Capistrano task that precompiles the assets locally and then uploads the assets to the the Nginx servers, and the manifest files to the app servers.

The problem is the assets on my local machine could differ from the assets the git branch I am deploying from.

Is there a better way or must I just be dillagent to always deploy from the correct clean branch?

Edit here is the cap task that does the precompile and upload

namespace :assets do
  after "deploy:update_code", "assets:precompile"
  after "assets:precompile", "assets:upload_assets"
  after "assets:precompile", "assets:upload_manifest"


  desc "precompile assets"
  task :precompile do
    run_locally("bundle exec rake assets:clean && bundle exec rake assets:precompile RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env}")
  end

  desc "precompile and upload assets to webserver"
    task :upload_assets, :roles => :nginx do
    top.upload( "public/assets", "/usr/local/fieldphone/#{rails_env}/", :via => :scp, :recursive => true)
  end
  # 
  desc "upload manifest file"
  task :upload_manifest, :roles => :app do
    top.upload( "public/manifest.yml", "#{release_path}/public/", :via => :scp )
  end

end

Richard Hulse Richard Hulse · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-28T20:00:58

You say that assets on your local machines could differ from that on the deploy branch. In normal circumstances your dev environment doesn't need compiled assets.

That being so I'd suggest that you alter your task to remove the assets once they have been deployed, leaving your local working copy clean at all times. This would guarantee that each deploy gets the latest (correct) version of files. (If you are not doing so, I'd also suggest that you use the default options for dev mode which relies on Sprockets to do all the asset serving).

Rails 3.1 asset pipeline production w/out javascript runtime environment

Edit here is the cap task that does the precompile and upload

2 Answers