Architecture Overview

• HTML/CSS/JS
• Node.js backend
• GitHub OAuth API via Passport
• MongoDB with Mongoose
• Stripe Connect
• Liftoff (Cody's build scripts, repo currently private)

AppCenter Dashboard is the glue between GitHub and our repository system. Ideally when you first create a project on GitHub, you would go to the AppCenter Dashboard and initialize the repository. This will setup AppCenter Dashboard to monitor the repository with GitHub hooks.

When a release is created on GitHub, you will get an option to publish that release in AppCenter Dashboard. The AppCenter Dashboard back-end will then clone the repository, run tests on the code, build the code with Liftoff, and publish it to a testing repository. At this point, a human reviewer from elementary will install the application and continue running tests. This ensures the best performance, user experience, and desktop integration for any app in AppCenter.

If any test fails, AppCenter Dashboard will submit an issue on GitHub with detailed information on the problems, and in some cases, solutions to fix it. After fixing these issues you will be able to resubmit your app for publishing.

At this point, the approved app will be moved into the stable repo, and available to all users of elementary OS. We will be using aptly behind nginx to host the repository. Ultimately this repository will be the focus of AppCenter and the elementary OS third-party app ecosystem.

Learn more about the technical details.