Your AI-powered co-pilot for building and deploying applications.
The Alis Build Platform extension for Visual Studio Code provides a seamless, integrated experience for developers using Alis. From defining your application's resources to building and deploying services, this extension brings the core Alis workflow directly into your editor.
Key Features
Workspace Management: Easily switch between your Organisations and Products. The extension automatically configures your workspace with the correct repositories and settings.
Define, Build, Deploy (DBD) Workflow: A guided, end-to-end workflow to take your ideas from definition to production.
Automated Go Playground: Automatically generates a Go-based testing environment for each neuron (microservice). This allows developers to quickly write and run tests for their services directly within a .playground directory in their workspace.
Environment Management: Activate development, staging, or production variables and credentials through the Alis control plane.
Nix Environment Integration: Optional, integrated support for Nix to provide consistent, reproducible development environments.
Seamless Authentication: Securely sign in to the Alis platform using your existing credentials. The extension manages your session, including automatic token refreshes.
Getting Started
Installation: Install the "Alis Build Platform" extension from the VS Code Marketplace.
Sign In: Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P) and run alis • Identity: Login to Alis Build. This opens a browser window to authenticate.
Open a Product: Products are opened, cloned and built from the alis Control Plane (alis • CLI: Open Alis Control Plane) or from a vscode:// deeplink; either one configures this workspace automatically.
Core Workflows
The Define, Build, Deploy (DBD) Cycle
The heart of the Alis platform is the DBD cycle, fully supported within the extension.
Define: Modify your service definitions (.proto files) in the define repository.
Build: Trigger a local or cloud build directly from the Workspace view. The extension will guide you through selecting a commit and any necessary Dockerfiles.
Deploy: After a successful build, deploy your services to one or more environments. You can choose to run a "plan" to see the infrastructure changes before applying them.
User Interface Overview
Workspace View (Alis Icon in Activity Bar): This is your main control center. It shows a tree for your selected Product: the Product's Neurons (each with its version), and each Neuron's Deployments across Environments. You can trigger DBD actions directly from this view.
Status Bar:
Workstation Status: Shows whether development is local, remote, Nix-managed, or running on a cloud workstation.
Feedback and Support
For bugs, feature requests, or support, please use the integrated issue reporting tools or contact the Alis Build Platform team.
