Workflow to test changes in Probot app locally without needing to push to production

README.md

Note - I use heroku for deploying prod app and for local I use smee for proxying webhook payload to localhost.

Instructions -

• Deploy the probot app code to heroku.
• Create two github apps say my-app and my-app-dev.
• For my-app put the heroku url like http://my-app.herokuapp.com/ in Webhook URL.
• For my-app-dev put the smee url like https://smee.io/aldnhksfh in Webhook URL.
• For both apps use appropriate Webhook Secrets and download the private keys.
• Rename the private keys to private-key.pem and private-key-dev.pem respectively.
• In the .env file store the production config values (APP_ID, PRIVATE_KEY_PATH, WEBHOOK_SECRET).
• For local development add these scripts in package.json and replace the config values with your my-app-dev one's.

  "scripts": {
    "start": "probot run ./index.js",
    "start:dev": "nodemon --exec \"npm start -- -a APP_ID -P private-key-dev.pem -W https://smee.io/aldnhksfh\"",
    "probot": "probot",
    "test": "jest && standard"
  }

• Run npm i --save-dev nodemon.
• For local development do npm run start:dev
• With this, nodemon will restart my-app-dev probot app if code changes.
• In heroku add the Config Vars according to the .env file. For PRIVATE_KEY use the content of private-key.pem.

Advantages -

• No changes in code base.
• Easy to manage.
• Easy to deploy.