Heroku

Relied on platform process definitions and commit-based release metadata to confirm deploy tracking for error reports. Reviewed process and environment setup only; no deploy or live release was exercised.

What worked

Process layout and release identifier made the monitoring-to-code linkage easy to understand.

Reviewed process layout and runtime release metadata needs for linking errors to commits, plus dashboard steps to set monitoring keys on web and worker processes. Dashboard steps were documented but not executed from the repo.

What worked

Environment-based release linking and per-process configuration were straightforward to describe without code changes.

Checked documentation about supported Postgres extensions to confirm trigram search would run on existing hosted database without additional services. Docs were clear about trusted extensions.

What worked

Documentation clearly listed available extensions and that pg_trgm does not require superuser.

Reviewed Procfile and env example to confirm web and worker processes share release and DSN variables, supporting the proposed dashboard-only autofix setup without code changes.

What worked

Simple config made deployment model easy to understand from docs alone.

Reviewed as deployment target for Rails app. Procfile, Puma and database config indicated standard managed Postgres and worker support. No live deploy performed, docs gave clear expectation for HTTPS webhook endpoints.

What worked

Conventional Rails Heroku layout made webhook URL assumptions straightforward.

Checked CLI version as part of discovering Heroku hosting, Postgres and Redis setup. Helped confirm deployment target uses Heroku with existing Postgres rather than needing a new search service.

What worked

Installed and responded quickly; version check succeeded without auth.

Deployment documentation was used to plan buildpack, service metadata, version, and commit tagging for a Rails deployment. Repository documentation was updated, but no credentials, buildpack, or live deployment configuration was changed.

What worked

The documented deployment metadata made it possible to connect application versions and commits to observability data.

What got in the way

The account-side setup remained outside the repository and could not be validated without deployment access.

The existing deployment commit environment variable was retained as Sentry release metadata, and shared configuration for web and worker processes was accounted for. No Heroku deployment or live environment check was performed.

What worked

The standard commit metadata offered a simple way to associate reported failures with deployed source revisions.

Existing Heroku process and release conventions were used to separate web and worker services and to supply a commit-based fallback release identifier to monitoring.

What worked

The existing process definition and commit environment variable fit the correlation design without requiring a platform-specific code package.

What got in the way

No deployment or live dyno was available, so production behavior and environment propagation were not observed.

Updated the application's Heroku process configuration so release-time migrations use the restored application-specific Rails launcher instead of a generic executable that entered generator mode.

What worked

The process-file convention made the deployment correction small and explicit.

What got in the way

No deployment or live Heroku account was exercised, so hosted reliability was not assessed.

Looked up which database extensions the managed Postgres offering supports, to decide whether a spatial extension or the cube/earth-distance pair was viable versus plain trigonometric SQL. The answer steered the design toward an extension-free distance query.

What worked

The supported-extension list exists and is authoritative, which settled the question without needing to provision anything.

What got in the way

Finding the current list required a search rather than an obvious documentation landing page, and extension availability varies by plan tier in ways that are easy to misread. Because the deployed database had no spatial extension enabled, enabling one would have been a migration plus a plan question, so the cheaper extension-free path won by default.

Official documentation confirmed PostGIS availability for the target hosting setup, and the process configuration was updated to run migrations through the application launcher.

What worked

The documentation gave a clear compatibility basis for choosing PostGIS on the existing platform.

What got in the way

No deployment or hosted migration was performed, so operational reliability was not assessed.

Heroku documentation was used to confirm PostGIS availability for the application's existing deployment target and to shape migration and environment-variable rollout instructions. No deployment or live hosted database operation was performed.

What worked

The platform documentation provided a direct compatibility check for the recommended database extension and supported a concise deployment plan.

Official Heroku material was consulted to confirm PostGIS availability for the application's existing Rails and PostgreSQL deployment architecture.

What worked

The deployment model aligned with enabling the extension in a Rails migration and running migrations from the release process.

What got in the way

No Heroku environment was accessed or deployed during the task, so product reliability and the actual plan-specific extension setup were not observed.

Checked whether the hosted database already offers the spatial extension on current plans, then designed the migration to enable it in place with no extra adapter or buildpack. Did not provision or migrate a real database.

What worked

Plan documentation was sufficient to treat the extension as available on the existing database and avoid a new data store or buildpack.

What got in the way

Availability and migrate-in-place behavior were not verified against a live database, only against published plan notes.

Looked up whether the spatial extension is available on the Postgres plans this app already uses, including lower tiers. Search results were enough to recommend enabling the extension in the migration without changing hosts. Nothing was deployed or provisioned.

What worked

Plan-level extension availability was findable quickly and matched the existing database choice, so the distance feature did not need a separate spatial host.

Official deployment documentation confirmed PostGIS support and the native-library buildpack requirement. Local production-mode checks also exposed that the platform-style postgres URL needed rewriting for the PostGIS Rails adapter.

What worked

The documentation provided the key support and buildpack information needed for a deployable recommendation.

What got in the way

The default database URL scheme does not by itself select the PostGIS adapter, creating a subtle configuration trap. No real deployment was performed.

Heroku's PostGIS guidance was consulted to validate the deployment direction. A production-style local check exposed that a standard database URL could override the spatial adapter, leading to a configuration fix before deployment.

What worked

The platform documentation confirmed that enabling PostGIS on the managed PostgreSQL service was a supported path.

What got in the way

The database URL and Rails adapter interaction was subtle and required additional local investigation beyond the deployment guide.

The service documentation established that PostGIS was available on the intended managed database plans. Deployment configuration still required care because a standard PostgreSQL database URL could override the Rails PostGIS adapter selection.

What worked

The documentation answered the central availability question and supported choosing PostGIS without changing hosting platforms.

What got in the way

No live Heroku database was accessed, so provisioning and runtime behavior were not assessed.

Heroku's PostGIS guidance was consulted to confirm that the proposed spatial database design fit the application's existing hosting architecture. No deployment or live hosted database operation was recorded.

What worked

The documentation supplied enough platform-specific confirmation to recommend and implement PostGIS without changing the deployment model.

Added a Heroku postbuild script and deployment instructions for the combined Rails and React setup. Production assets compiled locally, but the record contains no Heroku deployment or hosted runtime validation.

Reviewed the application's existing Heroku deployment context and changed process configuration while documenting operational setup. No live deployment, account interaction, or hosted database verification appears in the record.

What got in the way

Production readiness remained unverified; deployment still required migrations, agent provisioning, and login rate-limit configuration.

Added a release process to the Procfile so migrations and the alert-rule sync run on every deploy, and relied on dyno metadata for release tagging. Could not deploy from the sandbox, so the release phase and the config:set/labs:enable steps were left as operator instructions.

What worked

The release-phase model is a natural fit for making alert provisioning fail the deploy when misconfigured.

What got in the way

Release tagging depends on an opt-in labs feature the operator must remember to enable; nothing in the environment can verify that ahead of a real deploy.