Create a QA Environment for Testing Kedro-Viz

[rashidakanchwala]

Gitpod has been the preferred method for QA testing of PRs without requiring a full development setup. However, with Gitpod Classic being deprecated, we need an alternative solution.

https://www.drupal.org/project/drupalpod/issues/3500792#:~:text=Gitpod%20Classic%20is%20going%20away,be%20available%20after%20April%2C%202025.

Exploration So Far

• Gitpod Flex: Supports Dev Containers. A first attempt was made to integrate Dev Containers (#2255), but the setup behaved unpredictably.
• GitHub Pages: Was tested but didn’t work as expected.
• Potential Alternative Solutions:
  • Netlify? Could be an option, but needs further investigation. However, we prefer not to pay for this.

Next Steps

• Explore Gitpod Flex further and see if we can resolve inconsistencies in setup.
• Investigate Netlify or other hosting alternatives for previewing PRs.
• Determine if GitHub Pages can be configured correctly or if it should be ruled out.
• Document a recommended approach for PR testing moving forward.

[datajoely]

If were to adopt some of these changes it would simplify a hell of a lot

kedro-org/kedro#4363

[astrojuanlu]

In case it helps (but feel free to throw this away), I made 1 last attempt on the dev-containers branch https://github.com/kedro-org/kedro-viz/tree/dev-containers

There are some improvements from the last time I tried #2255 , but then got stuck at a weird frontend error.

Happy to help test whatever comes but I think it's time for me to put this aside 😅

[astrojuanlu]

Notice that GitHub Codespaces, an alternative to Gitpod Flex, also uses Dev Containers https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/setting-up-your-project-for-codespaces/adding-a-dev-container-configuration/introduction-to-dev-containers