🗳 VoteApp

A production-grade, cloud-native voting application built with a clean Go backend, modern Vue.js frontend, and a fully automated GitOps-powered CI/CD pipeline.

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🌟 Overview

VoteApp is a microservice-style voting application designed to demonstrate:

• Robust backend architecture using Go and Clean Architecture principles
• Modern frontend UI built with Vue 3 + Vite
• End-to-end DevOps automation including:
  • CI/CD with GitHub Actions
  • Docker image builds and versioning
  • GitOps-driven deployment via Argo CD
  • Dependency updates managed with Renovate
  • Automated E2E tests after deployment
• Tag-based release promotion: every push to main triggers a deterministic release based on timestamp and run number

This project simulates real-world infrastructure, workflows, and testing strategies adopted by top engineering teams.

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📁 Repository Structure

vote-app/
├── backend/ # Go backend API using Clean Architecture
│ ├── cmd/server # Entry point
│ └── internal/ # Domain logic, use cases, infrastructure, handlers
├── frontend/ # Vue 3 frontend served via Nginx
├── docker-compose.yaml # Local dev stack
├── scripts/ # Workflow coordination scripts (Renovate, Argo CD sync)
└── .github/workflows/ci.yml # Full CI pipeline (build, release, test)

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⚙️ Architecture

Backend (Go)

• Follows Clean Architecture:
  • domain/: vote entity and validation
  • usecase/: business logic
  • infrastructure/redis: persistent vote storage
  • handler/: HTTP handlers and routes
• Unit tested using Testify and table-driven tests
• Redis-backed data store with mocked interfaces for testing

Frontend (Vue.js)

• Built with Vue 3 and Vite
• Simple but extensible UI
• Served via Nginx (configured with nginx.conf)

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🚀 CI/CD & GitOps Workflow

Every time code is merged to main:

1. ✅ Unit tests run for backend services
2. ✅ Docker images are built and pushed to Docker Hub:
   • vote-frontend
   • vote-backend
   • Tagged as vYYYY.MM.DD.RUN_ID
3. ✅ Renovate is triggered in the argocd-voteapp repo to update the deployment manifests
4. ✅ A Renovate PR is created and auto-merged (thanks to semantic PR titles + labels)
5. ✅ The workflow waits for Argo CD to finish syncing the app
6. ✅ E2E tests are executed against the live dev environment

This approach guarantees only tested, deployed code reaches the environment.

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✅ E2E Tests

Once the application is deployed and synced via Argo CD, the workflow runs integration tests using curl:

# Valid votes
curl -X POST https://voteapp.dev.rch.domain-buy-5.com/vote?vote=Cats    # expect 200
curl -X POST https://voteapp.dev.rch.domain-buy-5.com/vote?vote=Dogs    # expect 200

# Invalid votes
curl -X POST https://voteapp.dev.rch.domain-buy-5.com/vote?vote=Unicorn # expect 400
curl -X POST https://voteapp.dev.rch.domain-buy-5.com/vote?vote=Cat     # expect 400 (typo)
curl -X POST https://voteapp.dev.rch.domain-buy-5.com/vote              # expect 400 (missing param)

These tests confirm the system is functionally correct in a production-like environment.

🏷️ Image Tagging Strategy

Docker images are tagged using the format: vYYYY.MM.DD.RUN_ID

For example:

v2025.07.26.16543231189

✅ Benefits

• Uniqueness: Each tag corresponds to a single GitHub Actions run.
• Traceability: Tags map directly to a specific CI run and commit.
• Deterministic promotion: GitOps tools like Argo CD can safely deploy new images based on tags, not latest.

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🔄 Renovate Pull Requests

After pushing new images, the Renovate bot is triggered in the argocd-voteapp repository.

🧠 What It Does

• Scans for new tags of vote-backend and vote-frontend
• Creates a PR updating the Kubernetes manifests with the new image tag
• PR title example: chore(deps): update vote app dev to v2025.07.26.16543231189
• Adds labels: env::dev
• The PR is automatically merged when the branch passes CI checks

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🧪 Test Coverage

Type	Description
✅ Unit Tests	Clean architecture logic (entities, use cases)
✅ E2E Tests	Live curl-based HTTP tests after deployment

🧪 E2E Test Cases

Test Description	Expected Status
Valid vote: Cats	200 OK
Valid vote: Dogs	200 OK
Invalid vote: Cat (typo)	400 BadRequest
Invalid vote: Unicorn	400 BadRequest
Missing vote param	400 BadRequest

These tests ensure the application works end-to-end in the live environment post-deployment.

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📦 Technologies Used

Category	Technology
Backend	Go, Clean Architecture
Frontend	Vue 3, Vite, Nginx
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, Renovate
GitOps	Argo CD
Testing	Testify (unit tests), curl (E2E)
Registry	Docker Hub
Infrastructure	Deployed via Argo CD (see argocd-voteapp)

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👔 Why This Project Stands Out

This repository goes beyond just building an app — it showcases how real-world teams operate:

• Well-architected Go codebase following clean separation of concerns
• CI/CD pipelines that are production-grade and observable
• Complete GitOps automation with controlled rollouts
• Automated validation gates via unit and E2E tests
• Release traceability and control via semantic Docker tags and Renovate-managed PRs

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🔗 Related Repositories

• argocd-voteapp – GitOps deployment definitions managed by Argo CD
• provisioning-voteapp – Terraform for cluster & cloud provisioning

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