ESHOPMANESHOPMAN Logo
Our Blog

Troubleshooting HubSpot Automated Deployments: Ensuring Your CI/CD Pipeline Reports Errors

Troubleshooting HubSpot Automated Deployments: Ensuring Your CI/CD Pipeline Reports Errors

Automated deployments are a cornerstone of efficient development workflows. However, what happens when a seemingly successful build *doesn't* actually deploy in HubSpot? This was the core question raised in a recent HubSpot Community discussion, and it's a scenario that can trip up even experienced developers.

The Problem: Successful Builds, Failed Deployments

The original poster described a situation where they had enabled auto-deploy for successful builds in HubSpot. The problem? Sometimes, even after a successful build, the changes weren't automatically deployed. Instead, a deploy button appeared with a warning about potential risks. While understandable from a safety perspective, this created a problem for their CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline. The pipeline would report a successful deployment, even though the changes hadn't actually gone live.

Understanding Risky Deployments in HubSpot

HubSpot's system flags certain changes as "risky" to prevent potentially breaking changes from being automatically pushed to a live environment. This is a good thing! It forces a manual review for things that could significantly impact the user experience or data integrity.

The Question: How to Signal Deployment Failure to CI/CD?

The core of the issue is how to make the "hs project upload" command, or some other part of the process, signal to the CI/CD pipeline that a deployment *didn't* happen. This is crucial for maintaining accurate reporting and preventing developers from assuming their changes are live when they aren't.

Analyzing the Community Response

One respondent shared a link to the HubSpot CLI project commands documentation: https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/developer-tooling/local-development/hubspot-cli/project-commands. While this documentation is helpful for understanding the CLI's capabilities, it didn't directly address the core issue of detecting deployment failures.

Possible Solutions and Approaches

Here's a breakdown of potential solutions, synthesizing the original problem with some additional context:

  • Examine the CLI Output: The most direct approach is to carefully examine the output of the hs project upload command. Look for specific error codes or messages that indicate a manual deployment is required. You'll need to experiment to identify the exact text to search for.
  • HubSpot API Check: After the hs project upload command completes (or fails), use the HubSpot API to verify that the expected changes are actually live. This adds an extra layer of validation. For example, if you updated a specific module, use the API to fetch the module's content and compare it to the expected version.
  • Custom Scripting: Implement a custom script that wraps the hs project upload command. This script would:
    1. Execute the command.
    2. Parse the output for errors.
    3. Call the HubSpot API to verify the deployment.
    4. Return an appropriate exit code to the CI/CD pipeline (e.g., 0 for success, non-zero for failure).

Example: Custom Script Snippet (Conceptual)

This is a simplified example to illustrate the concept:

# pseudocode - adapt to your scripting language

result = execute_command("hs project upload")

if result contains "Manual deployment required":
  api_check = check_hubspot_api_if_changes_applied()
  if api_check == false:
    exit(1) # Signal failure to CI/CD
  else:
    exit(0) # Signal success (API confirms deployment)
else:
  exit(0) # Assume success if no manual deployment message

Remember to adapt this to your specific scripting language (e.g., Bash, Python, Node.js) and the specifics of your HubSpot project.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

This is a common issue when automating deployments, especially with platforms that have built-in risk assessments like HubSpot. The key takeaway is that relying solely on the CLI's success/failure is insufficient. We strongly recommend incorporating API-based verification into your CI/CD pipeline. This adds a crucial layer of validation and ensures that your automated deployments are truly reflected in your HubSpot account. For e-commerce sites, this is even more important to ensure the storefront is always properly updated.

Wrapping Up

Successfully integrating HubSpot deployments into a CI/CD pipeline requires a robust error-handling strategy. By carefully examining the CLI output, leveraging the HubSpot API, and implementing custom scripting, you can ensure that your pipeline accurately reflects the status of your deployments and avoid potential headaches down the road. This is especially vital if you are running an online store site builder like ESHOPMAN on top of HubSpot.

Share: