How-to guides

These how-to guides take you through common processes for Launchpad developers, from creating a local setup and contributing changes, to operating and debugging the platform.

Get started

To get started with Launchpad, you’ll need to get the source code and run a local development instance. You can also set up buildd and Soyuz to enable building using your local Launchpad instance.

• Get the Launchpad source code

• Run Launchpad locally with quick set up

• Run Launchpad locally with advanced set up

• Database set up

• Deploy Soyuz locally

• Develop with Buildd

Operate Launchpad

Once you have your own instance of Launchpad up and running, there are some common tasks you may need to undertake such as observing the build farm, checking the availability of frontends, triaging bugs, deploying changes to production, etc.

• Get overview of build farm

• Check availability of frontends

• Manage users and teams in development environments

• Create job to publish artifact

• Triage Launchpad project bugs

• Land updates for Loggerhead

• Build and publish Launchpad development LXD images

• Use lp-shell

Common development tasks

As a developer working on Launchpad, below are some of the common tasks that you might need to do.

• Fix bugs

• Contribute changes

• Use an updated dependency

• Database schema changes process

• Apply database schema changes

• Import an Ubuntu package

Launchpad development tips

Developing for Launchpad can be challenging, but there are approaches that can make things easier whether your goal is to use Launchpad for codehosting locally, test CLI scripts, generate API docs, etc.

• Update the global configuration for tests

• Handle security policies

• Test CLI scripts

• Handle exceptions

• Preserve query count

• Run Launchpad with Chameleon template engine

• Generate Launchpad API docs

• Use codehosting locally

• Rename a database table

• Use MockIo library

Debug

Launchpad has many moving parts. This means identifying the source of an error isn’t always straightforward, but there are several ways to simplify debugging efforts.

• Debug tests with Visual Studio Code

• Debug stories and pagetests

• Troubleshoot breakpoint issues when running multiple test layers