Retire an application
1. Remove smoke tests
Remove any smokey tests specific to the application.
2. Update Release app
Mark the application as archived in the Release app.
Edit the application in the release app (you’ll need the deploy permission to
do this), and check the archived checkbox. This will hide it from the UI.
3. Update Signon
Mark the application as “retired” in signon, if it used it.
Click on the Applications tab. Find the application that is being retired and click the “edit” button. Tick the box that says “This application is being retired”, then save your changes.
4. Remove from GOV.UK Docker
Remove from the projects directory and any references in docker compose or throughout the repo.
5. Update DNS
Request any public DNS entries be removed. If the app had an admin UI, it will
have had public DNS entries in the publishing.service.gov.uk domain.
Follow the instructions for DNS changes in order to remove these.
6. Remove from the GOV.UK architecture diagram
- Remove the application from the GOV.UK architecture diagram
7. Drop database
Drop the database, if present - note that this might be in RDS, but it might also exist as a MongoDB or DocumentDB database.
8. Unpublish routes
Some applications are responsible for publishing certain routes. If you’re retiring a publishing application, make sure you check if any of its content items need to be unpublished and do it via the Publishing API.
9. Remove from Sentry
Since the application has been retired, it shouldn’t be tracked in Sentry.
10. Remove from Heroku
If relevant (e.g. if Heroku was used for previews).
11. Remove from govuk-helm-charts
Remove the app’s entry in [govuk-helm-charts] from:
- /charts/app-config/values-integration.yaml
- /charts/app-config/values-staging.yaml
- /charts/app-config/values-production.yaml
- (if present) /charts/app-config/templates/signon-secrets-sync-configmap.yaml
- (if present) /charts/external-secrets/templates/
It’s also wise to search that repo for other references to the app being retired. Once the PR is merged ([Example PR][]), the app pods will automatically be removed by Argo.
12. Delete the app’s Kubernetes resources (if applicable)
In the staging and production environments, deleting an Argo CD app will not automatically delete the Kubernetes resources that it manages, such as deployments, services, jobs and cronjobs.
You will need to list and delete these resources yourself, for example:
kubectl --namespace apps get all | grep <app-name>
kubectl delete deploy/<app-name> svc/<app-name> job/<app-name>-upload-assets
13. Archive the repo
Follow the steps at Retire a repo.