Retire an application
1. Remove app from puppet
Configure Puppet to remove the app from all servers. Change the app resource,
and any database resources to ensure => absent, remove any host and
load-balancer entries, but leave the hieradata entries.
See this pull request for an example:
After this has been deployed, remove it entirely. For example:
2. Remove smoke tests
Remove any smokey tests specific to the application.
3. Remove deploy scripts
Remove necessary scripts from govuk-app-deployment.
4. 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.
5. Remove from deploy Jenkins
Remove entry from the deploy Jenkinses. This is managed
through govuk-puppet in the common.yml.
6. 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.
7. Remove from GOV.UK Docker
Remove from the projects directory and any references in docker compose or throughout the repo.
8. 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, and ask the GOV.UK Platform Engineering team to approve any necessary Pull Requests.
9. Remove credentials
Remove any hieradata credential entries for the app in govuk-secrets (private repo).
10. Drop database
If Puppet hasn’t done it (eg for MongoDB databases), drop the database.
11. Remove jobs in CI
If tests were set up, go to CI and choose “Delete Repository” for your project.
12. 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 If you’re retiring a publishing application, make sure you check if any of its content items need to be unpublished and do it via the Publishing API.
13. Remove from Sentry
Since the application has been retired, it shouldn’t be tracked in Sentry.
14. Remove from Heroku
If relevant (e.g. if Heroku was used for previews).
15. Archive the repo
Follow the steps at Retire a repo.