This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Naval Kishor Upadhyay
Principle #12: Admin Processes
Goal: Run administrative or maintenance tasks as one-off processes in the same environment as your application, using the same codebase and configuration.
What It Means
- One-off tasks: Admin processes are temporary jobs such as database migrations, data cleanup, or maintenance scripts.
- Same environment: These tasks should run in the same environment and with the same configuration as the app, ensuring consistency.
- Use app’s code: Reuse existing application code for admin tasks instead of creating separate scripts with their own logic.
- Ephemeral: Admin processes are short-lived and not part of the regular running services.
Why It Matters
- Consistency: Ensures admin tasks behave exactly like the application in production.
- Reliability: Reduces the risk of environment-specific bugs.
- Efficiency: Reuses tested and maintained code instead of duplicating logic.
- Safety: Runs in a controlled environment, lowering the chance of introducing errors.
Example
A Rails application needs to update its database schema:
- The developer runs
rake db:migratein the production environment. - The command uses the same database connection settings and code as the live application.
- Once the migration finishes, the process exits.
Best Practices
- Run admin processes as separate, short-lived jobs.
- Use the same environment variables and configurations as the app.
- Reuse application code for consistent behavior.
- Keep admin scripts version-controlled with the app.
- Ensure admin tasks can be run on-demand without special setup.
Takeaway: Treat admin processes as one-off tasks that run in the same environment and with the same code as the application, ensuring consistent, reliable, and safe operations.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Naval Kishor Upadhyay