Week #4 #

Testing and QA #

This week we focused on implementing testing strategy across our application to ensure reliability and maintainability of our Open Labs Share platform.

Testing Strategy Implementation #

Unit Tests: Implemented unit tests for all microservices using Gradle testing framework
Integration Tests: Created tests for fetching data from database to service and back
Cross-browser Testing: Validated functionality across Chrome, Firefox, and Safari
Model Validation: Implemented tests for RAG system accuracy and response quality

Evidence of test execution #

Docker Build Test: link

Service Tests: link

Backend Services Build Validation: link

Protocol Validation: link

CI/CD #

This week we successfully implemented a complete CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions to automate our build, test, and deployment processes.

CI/CD Pipeline Implementation #

Continuous Integration Setup:

Build Validation Workflow: Validates code builds and application compilation
Docker Validation Workflow: Validates Docker containers functionality
Deployment Workflow: Handles automated deployments to staging environment
Kanban Automation: Automatically updates project boards based on PR status
PR Notification System: Sends notifications in chat for pull request activities
Protocol Validation: Validates gRPC protocol buffer definitions
Service Testing: Runs service-level tests

Continuous Deployment Setup:

Staging Deployment: Automatic deployment to staging environment on main branch merges
Production Deployment: In progress
Rollback Capability: In progress

Pipeline Architecture:

Multi-stage Pipeline in Deployment Workflow: Test → Build and push Docker image → Deploy on self-hosted server
Parallel Test Execution: Optimized for speed with parallel job execution
Caching Strategy: Implemented Docker layer caching and dependency caching

Links to CI/CD configuration files #

Build Validation Workflow: link

Docker Build Test Workflow: link

Deployment Workflow: link

Kanban Automation Workflow: link

PR Notification Workflow: link

Service Tests Workflow: link

Docker Configurations: link

Deployment (Staging) #

Staging Deployment Process:

Code push triggers GitHub Actions workflow
Automated testing
Docker images built and pushed to Docker Hub
Staging environment automatically updated via CI/CD
Health checks and executed

Infrastructure:

self-hosted server (6/6 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 240 GB SSD)
Cloudflare enabled
CloudPub enabled (for redidrection self-hosted server’s IP beyond university network NAT router)
SSL certificate
2 domains: open-labs-share.online (active) and open-labs-share.ru (inactive)

Working Environment URL: link

Important note: Current deployment is not production-ready. Since it is a new experience for us, we are not stopping on current strategy, plans and infrastructure and planning to improve it in the next weeks. This is not a final version of our deployment.

Vibe Check #

Team Health Assessment:

Progress Discussion: The team is performing pretty good this week. We’ve successfully tackled all major Week #4 objectives including testing, CI/CD implementation, and deployment setup. Correct team meetings, sprint planning, and other offline activities are working well.

Roadblocks Addressed:

Testing Infrastructure: Initially struggled with test environment setup due to lack of time, but resolved through collaborative debugging sessions.
CI/CD Complexity: GitHub Actions configuration required multiple idaeas to be handled and many-many iterations to make it work, but we successfully implemented it.
Deployment Challenges: self-hosted server configuration had one major issue: we were unable to access it from outside of university network because of university network NAT router. So, our first idea was to use Cloudflare to redirect requests to our server, but it was not working due to unable to proceed payment. So, we had to use CloudPub to redirect requests to our server. That is still require manual work to be done, but with aquired domain name and SSL certificate we are able to access our server from outside of university network successfully.

Team Dynamics:

Communication: Our daily texts and in-person meetings have been really effective. Everyone speaking up, sharing their issues and ideas.
Code Review Process: Peer review quality has improved significantly: we are checking each others code in our fields (Backend, Frontend, ML, Frontend) to better understand each other’s work and to find potential issues and improvements.
Issue Management: We’ve embraced GitHub’s project management tools and they’re really clicking for us. Our Kanban board gives everyone a clear view of what’s in progress, while milestones help us stay focused on sprint goals. The labeling system makes it easy to filter and find specific types of work, and having clear assignees means no one’s wondering who’s handling what.
Work-Life Balance: Unfortunately, we are libing with minor burnout issues. Also, Aleliya has been dealing with some serious health issues over the past couple weeks that have made it really tough for her to spend time at the computer. Despite this, she’s been staying involved through our text chats and has even managed to help out with some design work.

Action Items:

Continue weekly team retrospectives and planning sessions
Continue team or semi-team offline coding sessions
Continue to improve our time management and to be more efficient

Weekly commitments #

Individual contribution of each participant #

Kirill Efimovich (PM / DevOps):

Kanban board (clickable): link
Milestone (clickable): link
Closed issues (clickable): Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR, PR
Summary of TA feedback: Nice MVP progress. Suggestions to improve our project and add cherry on top for our product (Marimo elements for example). Also, if the member of our team is ill, then we should reassign and rearrange tasks to other team members.
Weekly contribution: Created ideas and implemented them in CI/CD pipeline for services, created deployment scripts, configured self-hosted server, worked with Cloudflare and CloudPub for redirection, expanded Kanban board and milestones, added multi-stage CI/CD pipeline, added staging deployment, fixed frontend bugs, written this report. Important note: We are conducting sprints on Friday, so current week is not fully completed. Full result can be seen on Friday.

Mikhail Trifonov (Backend):

Closed issues (clickable): Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR, PR, PR, PR, PR, PR, PR
Weekly contribution: Implemented CI build verification script for all backend services, added proper username change handling with JWT token updates, achieved comprehensive test coverage for User Service with unit and integration tests, developed points system with balance tracking and lab counters including automatic balance management, created frontend balance display in profile and user panels with real-time updates across all pages, added submission cost notifications and disabled submit buttons for insufficient balance, conducted code reviews and fixed bugs including cleanup of teammates’ code.

Nikita Maksimenko (Backend):

Closed issues (clickable): Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue, Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR, PR, PR, PR
Weekly contribution: Enhanced API Gateway service with comprehensive unit testing for service logic and input models, implemented all REST endpoints and gRPC service logic for submissions, comments, and feedback, updated documentation, participated in code review and bug fixing, closely work with backend team to fully connect the services.

Timur Salakhov (Backend):

Closed issues (clickable): Issue, Issue, Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR, PR, PR
Weekly contribution: Enhanced labs service with submissions loading functionality and implemented comprehensive testing suite for labs service.

Ravil Kazeev (Backend):

Closed issues (clickable): Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR
Weekly contribution: Updated feedback service with new gRPC methods, refactored existing code, and migrated comments section from PostgreSQL to MongoDB.

Kirill Shumskiy (ML):

Closed issues (clickable): Issue
Closed PR’s (clickable): PR
Weekly contribution: Conducted auto-grading experiments, implemented inference API for large models, designed auto-grading architecture, validated baseline on test dataset, and wrote tests.

Aleliya Turushkina (Designer / Frontend):

Closed issues (with her assist) (clickable): Issue, Issue, Issue
Weekly contribution: Sadly, was not able to contribute much this week due to health issues. Was able to help with some design work and joined team discussions.

More detailed descriptions of services can be found by links from project README.md file (link).

Plan for Next Week #

Feedback Collection & User Testing:

Get our deployed app in front of actual users (classmates, TAs, and prof. Ivanov)
Run some informal usability sessions - see where people get confused or stuck
Collect and analyze feedback
Document what works and what definitely doesn’t

Code Quality & Stability:

Fix the bugs we know about (and the new ones users will find)
Improve error handling - make failures less catastrophic and more user-friendly
Clean up our codebase - better comments, remove dead code, consistent formatting

Performance & Polish:

Make the UI more responsive
Improve our CI/CD pipeline based on what we learned this week
Better deployment stability - automate current manual CloudPub work

Expected Reality Check:

A more stable, user-friendly version of our app
Better deployment process that doesn’t require manual intervention
Start preparation for final demo with real user feedback incorporated

Confirmation of the code’s operability #

We confirm that the code in the main branch:

In working condition.
Run via docker-compose (or another alternative described in the README.md).