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)

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

When a release is created on GitHub, you will get an option to publish that release in Houston's dashboard. Houston 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 someone from elementary will install the application and continue running tests. This ensures the best performance, user experience, and desktop integration for any application in AppHub.

If any test fails, Houston 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 application for publishing.

At this point, the approved application 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 3rd party app ecosystem.

Learn more about the technical details.