Final week, Konstantin Kovshenin launched Sail, a CLI software for deploying WordPress functions to the DigitalOcean cloud. The undertaking is free to make use of and open supply. Nonetheless, he has plans for an upgraded premium expertise down the street.
Kovshenin cited pace and effectivity as the 2 main causes builders ought to give his new software a strive. “You don’t have to wander round net UIs to launch a brand new server and set up WordPress. You simply sail init. You don’t have to open your SFTP GUI consumer to add adjustments to your utility. You simply sail deploy.”
He additionally stated that as a result of it’s a easy CLI, it’ll combine effectively with present developer instruments and companies like Gulp, webpack, GitHub Actions, and extra.
“I’m a DIY man with regards to WordPress internet hosting, so I wish to get my fingers soiled with servers, code, configuration, and the whole lot else,” wrote Kovshenin within the announcement submit. “I’ve been utilizing digital servers at DigitalOcean for small WordPress tasks for a really very long time, and it’s nice, and in addition very inexpensive.”
He had grown irritated doing routine upkeep and configuring servers for brand new tasks. This led him to jot down many scripts for dealing with every bit of this through the years. Over the previous couple of months, he cleaned them up and packaged them as a single CLI software referred to as Sail. It really works throughout Linux, macOS, and Home windows.
Whereas he lists some benefits of utilizing Sail over the competitors within the announcement submit, he thinks the advantages come from utilizing Sail with different developer instruments.
“For instance, if you happen to already use Git and GitHub, Sail can robotically deploy your utility everytime you push to your essential department,” he stated. “In case your undertaking is constructed with Gulp and webpack, you’ll be able to ask npm to deploy your utility after a profitable construct.”
The CLI software doesn’t make assumptions concerning the development atmosphere. Builders are free to make use of no matter setup they’re accustomed to, akin to Vagrant/VirtualBox, XAMP/MAMP, Native, Docker, or a customized setup.
“You should utilize it and not using a native development atmosphere in any respect and simply cowboy-code your manner by way of, and Sail will allow you to deploy with confidence and roll again whenever you’re overly assured,” he stated.
The next is a brief video demo:
The Way forward for Sail
For the quick time period, Sail solely works with DigitalOcean. Nonetheless, Kovshenin plans to help extra suppliers down the street as he seems into “extra complicated architectures.” Nonetheless, he stated it’s not a excessive precedence in the mean time.
“DigitalOcean has one of the best documentation, fingers down,” he stated. “The simplicity of their APIs simply blows you away. And that simplicity extends to their pricing as effectively, which made it fairly an apparent selection.”
Whereas the software is free, he’ll supply a Sail Premium service. There’s at present no launch date for it. Kovshenin stated he was gauging general curiosity earlier than diving in. Nonetheless, he does have an Early Entry signup type. Those that use it’ll achieve free passes through the beta interval and probably a reduction at launch.
Proper now, his focus is on constructing the core Sail options, which he says will all the time be free.
“The most important new function I’m enthusiastic about proper now could be Blueprints,” stated Kovshenin. “That is going to be a YAML manifest file, which can describe the specified utility atmosphere and state, together with which WordPress plugins to put in and activate, which themes and settings, in addition to any extra server software program and configuration, akin to mail, firewall, and so on. And to get all of this you’ll simply have to specify the blueprint file to sail init.”
The objective is to permit customers to construct, reuse, and even share their blueprints. Sail itself will even make widespread configurations out there. A single blueprint may embody WooCommerce, Stripe, Storefront, Jetpack, Redis object caching, mail relay by way of MailGun, and extra.
“Different options on the checklist embody sub-projects, staging/cloning, computerized and distant backups, profiling, monitoring, and malware/vulnerability scanning,” stated Kovshenin.
He’s hoping for extra suggestions on lacking options that would make the undertaking extra helpful for others.