Sandbox Pools

Sandbox pools in sfp are designed to provide instantly available Salesforce environments for development, testing, and review processes. By maintaining a pool of pre-created sandboxes, teams can significantly reduce wait times and streamline their development workflows.

Key Benefits

1. Immediate Availability: Eliminate waiting times for sandbox creation, allowing developers to start work instantly.

2. Reduced Overhead: Minimize the administrative burden of creating and managing individual sandboxes for each task.

3. Consistent Environment: Ensure all team members work with standardized, pre-configured sandbox environments.

4. Seamless Integration: Easily incorporate sandbox allocation into automated CI/CD pipelines and development workflows.

Sandbox Lifecycle

The following diagram illustrates the lifecycle of a sandbox within a pool:

{% @mermaid/diagram content="stateDiagram-v2 [] --> Created: Init (sfp pool sandbox init) Created --> Available: Monitor (sfp pool sandbox monitor) Available --> InUse: Fetch (sfp pool sandbox fetch) InUse --> Available: Lease Expired (sfp pool sandbox fetch) Available --> Extended: Extend (sfp pool sandbox extend) Extended --> Available: Extension Expired (sfp sandbox monitor) Available --> Expired: Monitor( sfp pool sandbox monitor ) Extended --> Expired: Monitor ( sfp pool sandbox monitor) Expired --> [] " %}

Commands Overview

1. Sandbox Pool Initialization

sfp pool sandbox init -f <path/to/config-file> -v <devhub-alias> -r <owner/repo>

Initializes sandbox pools based on configuration files.

2. Fetch a Sandbox

sfp pool sandbox fetch --repository <owner/repo> --pool <pool-name> --branch <branch-name> --issue <issue-number> [--devhubalias <alias>] [--wait <minutes>] [--leasefor <minutes>]

Fetches an available sandbox from a pool and assigns it to an issue.

3. Monitor Sandbox Pools

sfp pool sandbox monitor -v <devhub-alias> -r <owner/repo> -f <path/to/config-file> [<path/to/config-file>...]

Monitors sandbox status, handles activations, expirations, and deletions.

Continuous Monitoring

The sfp sandbox monitor command is designed to be run as a continuous cron job. This ensures that:

1. Newly created sandboxes are activated promptly.

2. Expired sandboxes are identified and marked for deletion.

3. Marked sandboxes are deleted, freeing up resources.

4. The pool is kept in a healthy state, always ready for use.

It's recommended to set up this command to run at regular intervals (e.g., every 15-30 minutes) to maintain an up-to-date and efficient sandbox pool.

For detailed information on each command and the expiration process, please refer to the individual command documentation.