🪄 Improved 🐞 Bug Fixes 🖼️ UX/UI 🚀 CI/CD Engine 🎨 Design area
about 1 year ago

Brainboard Feature Changelog - Week #4 - January 2023

We're excited to share with you the latest updates and improvements to our platform. Here's a summary of what we've been working on this week:

🐞 FIXED

We've resolved reported issues that were causing occasional crashes when, for example:
Screenshot 2023-05-11 at 22.57.35.png 661.77 KB
  1. Specify a different brand when doing a pull request:
    • We now allow you to specify a different branch in the base branch field in the pull request modal, when creating a pull request. This means that you are able to select which branch they want to merge their changes into, rather than being restricted to a specific branch such as “main”. This feature can be useful for organizations that use multiple branches for development and testing, as it allows developers to easily collaborate on code changes and merge them into the appropriate branch for deployment. Additionally, it can help to maintain the versioning and history of the Terraform codebase.
  2. Variable type not saved:
    • Problem: This bug fix addresses an issue where a new variable is not correctly saving the type information during the creation or modification process. This can cause problems with the functionality of the application, as the type of variable is important for determining how the application should handle and interact with the variable's value.
    • Solution: The fix involves updating the Terraform code that is responsible for handling the creation and modification of variables to properly save the type information. This could involve checking for missing or incorrect type information, and adding code to handle this properly. Additionally, it also involves testing the updated Terraform code to ensure that the bug is resolved and that the new variables are being created and modified correctly with the correct type information. 
  3. Custom group TF file broken:
    • Problem: The bug fix addresses an issue with the functionality that retrieves custom group files in Terraform. The bug is related to the fact that when a group starts with 'f' or 't' the retrieval of the custom group file is broken. The issue with the Terraform configuration for the “test” group, as the test.tf file should contain the necessary information for provisioning and managing the infrastructure for that group, but it is empty. 
    • Solution: Create an architecture or a blueprint of the infrastructure using Terraform. Add 3–4 nodes on the design canvas, which are servers or machines that make up the cloud infrastructure. Change the group of 2 of the nodes to “test” group. Now, retrieve the test.tf file, which should contain the Terraform configuration for the “test” group.
  4. Scroll through a big output:
    • Problem: The bug fix addresses an issue with the performance of scrolling through the output of the “plan” in Terraform. The bug is causing the scrolling to be slow and unresponsive, with a delay of 2–3 seconds before the update or the next lines are displayed.
    • Solution: We optimized the code that handles the output display and scrolling by reducing the number of updates and unnecessary calculations. We always make sure the data is being loaded and processed efficiently.
  5. Import Multiple strings:
    • Problem: The bug fix addresses an issue with the way Brainboard import Terraform code that contains "<<EOF" and "EOF" for a field. The bug causes these characters to be changed into strings which causes issues in the interpretation of the code.
    • Solution: Update the import code to properly handle these characters. We make sure the code that reads and interpret the imported Terraform code is able to handle these characters correctly.
  6. Feedback survey:
    • Problem: We noticed that the feedback form brought aggressive prompts to you, builders and cloud architects. 
    • Solution: We've disabled it for now. Please continue to contribute to the Slack community and contact us if any improvements need to be fixed. We generally respond within 6h. 
  7. Editing node title:
  • Problem: The bug fixes you addresses an issue with the way the editing of the title of a node behaves in Brainboard's canvas. The bug causes the title of the selected node to change when editing the title of a different node that is not selected.
  • Solution: We added a check to verify that the correct node is being edited, or by making sure the system is keeping track of the correct selected node.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Please note that the above issues have been fixed in the latest version of Brainboard and should no longer occur. If you continue to experience any issues, please reach out to our support team on our Public Slack Channel.

🧼 IMPROVED

We've made some performance enhancements to the:
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  1. CI/CD Engine: We've just introduced a feature for approval tasks, which allows users to request and receive approval before deploying code changes to a production environment. This can be useful for ensuring that code changes have been reviewed and tested properly before they are deployed to a live environment, and can help to prevent errors or issues that could negatively impact the performance or functionality of the system.
  2. Import: We continue to improve the import feature. This week, we've focused on database use case. Now, you can import schema and documentation. A schema is the structure of the database and the rules on how the data should be organized, while a document is a single unit of data stored within the database.
  3. Deleting cloud architectures: When soft-deleting cloud architectures, we now soft delete all related objects including workflow(s), pipelines, jobs, deployments, git integrations, and terraform settings.
This should result in faster load times and a smoother user experience.

As always, we value your feedback and suggestions. If you have any thoughts or ideas on how we can improve Brainboard, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

📆 Replay: Understand CI/CD strategies & Best Practices 


You can now watch last Tuesday's webinar on the details and implications of what CI/CD means for the cloud infrastructure. This is a short preview of what you will learn in less than 70 minutes: 
  • 0:02:20 CI/CD Day
  • 0:04:40 CI/CD in Application world 
  • 0:07:00 CI/CD for the app  
  • 0:13:47 IaC Best practices 
  • 0:20:00 Application vs. Infrastructure 
  • 0:28:00 IaC languages 
  • 0:34:40 Existing solutions 
  • 0:38:40 Commonalities & Challenges
  • 0:42:10 What is expected from a CI/CD solution 
  • 0:48:10 Some of useful open-source tools 
  • 0:52:00 CI/CD Best practices 
  • 0:57:40 Successful Implementation 
  • 1:05:20 Brainboard CI/CD Engine—demo tour 
  • 1:05:50 Design your first CI/CD workflow visually 
  • 1:09:00 CI/CD outputs 
  • 1:10:40 Create a CI/CD pipeline template