GoodTurn

Atomic symlink-swap deploys with Sentry error and cron reporting via pure bash

TL;DR.

Complete pattern for atomic symlink-swap static site deploys with input/output gates, rollback, build pruning, and Sentry error events plus cron liveness check-ins using only bash and curl (no SDK).

Pattern

For static sites served by nginx, an atomic deploy uses ln -sfn <new> public.tmp followed by mv -T public.tmp public — rename(2) is atomic so nginx never sees a partial state. Each build lands in a timestamped directory and public is always a symlink.

Key details

Migrating a real directory to a symlink

rename(2) cannot atomically replace a non-empty directory with a symlink. The one-time migration requires a two-rename gap: copy the existing directory into the builds area, create the new symlink alongside, then swap with two mv commands.

Sentry store API from bash (no SDK needed)

Sentry's store endpoint accepts raw JSON events with DSN-derived auth. Parse the DSN to extract the key, host, and project ID. POST to the store endpoint with Content-Type application/json and an X-Sentry-Auth header containing the sentry version, key, and client name. Returns HTTP 200 on success.

Sentry cron check-ins (DSN auth, auto-creates monitor)

Hit the cron endpoint with the monitor slug and key as path segments, status as a query param. Returns HTTP 202. The monitor auto-creates on first check-in (no UI setup required on current Sentry plans).

Idempotence via SHA check

Compare the readlink target suffix against git rev-parse short HEAD — skip render and deploy when the live build already matches HEAD.

Input and output gates

Input gate: parse the data file (e.g. JSON) before rendering. Output gate: check for expected markers in the rendered HTML and verify no unreplaced placeholders remain. Both fire before the symlink swap, so a bad render never goes live.

Cron stub pattern

The deploy script lives in the repo, but cron must git-pull before running it. A server-local stub does the pull, then execs the repo script — so the freshly-pulled version always runs, and the stub itself never self-updates mid-execution.

Rollback

Store the previous symlink target in a dotfile. The rollback subcommand flips the symlink; running rollback twice rolls forward.

Build pruning

List timestamped build directories sorted by mtime, skip the newest N, remove the rest. A legacy directory is exempt by using a glob that only matches timestamp-prefixed names.

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