Why we built Atlantis blog article (#145)

* Draft of atlantis release blog

* Assets

* resize images

* resize images

* Continue work on blog

* Final draft

* Add link to blog from README

.gitignore

@@ -4,3 +4,5 @@ atlantis
 .vscode
 atlantis.db
 output
+website/src/public
+.DS_Store

README.md

@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@
 ## Walkthrough Video
 [![Atlantis Walkthrough](./docs/atlantis-walkthrough-icon.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmIPWda0IKg)
 
+Read about [Why We Built Atlantis](https://www.atlantis.run/blog/atlantis-release/)
+
 [![CircleCI](https://circleci.com/gh/hootsuite/atlantis/tree/master.svg?style=shield&circle-token=08bf5b34233b0e168a9dd73e01cafdcf7dc4bf16)](https://circleci.com/gh/hootsuite/atlantis/tree/master)
 [![SuperDopeBadge](https://img.shields.io/badge/Hightower-extra%20dope-b9f2ff.svg)](https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/893260922222813184)
 [![Slack Status](https://thawing-headland-22460.herokuapp.com/badge.svg)](https://thawing-headland-22460.herokuapp.com)

website/src/config.toml

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Paginate = 4
 [[menu.main]]
     name = "Docs"
     weight = -100
-    url = "/docs/"
+    url = "https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis#getting-started"
 [[menu.main]]
     name = "Blog"
     weight = -100
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Paginate = 4
 [[menu.main]]
     name = "FAQ"
     weight = -100
-    url = "/faq/"
+    url = "https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis#faq"
 [[menu.main]]
     name = "Demo"
     weight = 100

website/src/content/blog/atlantis-release.md

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
++++
+title = "Atlantis: A Unified Workflow For Collaborating On Terraform"
+description = "Why we built Atlantis and how it's enabled us to more effectively collaborate on Terraform"
+weight = 20
+date = "2017-09-11T21:56:55-07:00"
+draft = false
+toc = true
++++
+
+We're very excited to announce the [open source](https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis) release of Atlantis! Atlantis is a tool for collaborating on Terraform that's been in use at [Hootsuite](https://hootsuite.com) for over a year. The core functionality of Atlantis enables developers and operators to run `terraform plan` and `apply` directly from Terraform pull requests. Atlantis then comments back on the pull request with the output of the commands:
+
+<img src="/img/demo-large.gif">
+
+This is a simple feature, however it has had a massive effect on how our team writes Terraform. By bringing a Terraform workflow to pull requests, Atlantis helped our Ops team collaborate better on Terraform and also enabled our entire development team to write and execute Terraform safely.
+
+Atlantis was built to solve two problems that arose at Hootsuite as we adopted Terraform:
+
+<div style="margin-bottom: 50px">
+<div style="margin-bottom: 25px">
+    <img alt="Collaborate" style="display:inline; position: relative; float: left; margin-top: 18px" height="48" src="/img/collaborate.png" width="48">
+    <h3 style="margin-left: 70px; margin-bottom: -10px; line-height: 50px;">1. Effective Collaboration</h3>
+    <p style="margin-left: 70px">What's the best way to collaborate on Terraform in a team setting?</p>
+</div>
+<div style="margin-bottom: 25px">
+    <img alt="No need to distribute credentials" style="display:inline; position: relative; float: left; margin-top: 18px" height="48" src="/img/no-need-to-distribute-keys.png" width="48">
+    <h3 style="margin-left: 70px; margin-bottom: -10px; line-height: 50px;">2. Developers Writing Terraform</h3>
+    <p style="margin-left: 70px">How can we enable our developers to write and apply Terraform safely?</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+## Effective Collaboration
+
+When writing Terraform, there are a number of workflows you can follow. The simplest workflow is just using `master`:
+
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<img src="/img/master-flow.png" style="height: 150px">
+</p>
+
+In this workflow, you work on `master` and run `terraform` locally. The problem with this workflow is that there is no collaboration or code review. So we start to use pull requests:
+
+<img src="/img/pull-request-flow.png">
+
+We still run `terraform plan` locally, but once we're satisfied with the changes we create a pull request for review. When the pull request is approved, we run `apply` locally.
+
+This workflow is an improvement, but there are still problems. The first problem is that it's hard to review just the diff on the pull request. To properly review a change, you really need to see the output from `terraform plan`.
+
+{{< figure src="/img/diff.png" caption="What looks like a small change..." >}}
+
+{{< figure src="/img/diff-output.png" caption="...can have a big plan" >}}
+
+The second problem is that now it's easy for `master` to get out of sync with what's actually been applied. This can happen if you merge a pull request without running `apply` or if the `apply` has an error halfway through, you forget to fix it and then you merge to master. Now what's in `master` isn't actually what's running on production. At best, this causes confusion the next time someone runs `terraform plan`. At worst, it causes an outage when someone assumes that what's in master is actually running, and depends on it.
+
+With the Atlantis workflow, these problems are solved:
+
+<img src="/img/atlantis-flow.png">
+
+Now it's easy to review changes because you see the `terraform plan` output on the pull request.
+
+{{< figure src="/img/comment.png" caption="Pull requests are easy to review since you can see the plan" >}}
+
+It's also easy to ensure that the pull request is `terraform apply`'d before merging to master because you can see the actual `apply` output on the pull request.
+
+{{< figure src="/img/apply-comment.png">}}
+
+So, Atlantis makes working on Terraform within an operations team much easier, but how does it help with getting your whole team to write Terraform?
+
+## Developers Writing Terraform
+
+Terraform usually starts out being used by the Ops team. As a result of using Terraform, the Ops team becomes much faster at making infrastructure changes, but the way developers request those changes remains the same: they use a ticketing system or chat to ask operations for help, the request goes into a queue and later Ops responds that the task is complete.
+
+Soon however, the Ops team starts to realize that it's possible for developers to make some of these Terraform changes themselves! There are some problems that arise though:
+
+* Developers don't have the credentials to actually run Terraform commands
+* If you give them credentials, it's hard to review what is actually being applied
+
+With Atlantis, these problems are solved. All `terraform plan` and `apply` commands are run from the pull request. This means developers don't need to have any credentials to run Terraform locally. Of course, this can be dangerous: how can you ensure developers (who might be new to Terraform) aren't applying things they shouldn't? The answer is code reviews and approvals.
+
+Since Atlantis comments back with the `plan` output directly on the pull request, it's easy for an operations engineer to review exactly what changes will be applied. And Atlantis can run in `require-approval` mode, that will require a GitHub pull request approval before allowing `apply` to be run:
+
+<img src="/img/approval-needed.png">
+
+With Atlantis, developers are able to write and apply Terraform safely. They submit pull requests, can run `atlantis plan` until their change looks good and then get approval from Ops to `apply`.
+
+Since the introduction of Atlantis at Hootsuite, we've had **78** contributors to our Terraform repositories, **58** of whom are developers (**75%**).
+
+## Where we are now
+
+Since the introduction of Atlantis at Hootsuite we've grown to 144 Terraform repositories[^1] that manage thousands of Amazon resources. Atlantis is used for every single Terraform change throughout our organization.
+
+## Getting started with Atlantis
+If you'd like to try out Atlantis for your team you can download the latest release from https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis/releases. If you run `atlantis bootstrap` you can get started in less than 5 minutes.
+To read more about Atlantis go to https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis.
+
+Check out our video for more information:
+{{< youtube TmIPWda0IKg >}}
+
+[^1]: We split our Terraform up into multiple states, each with its own repository (see [1](https://blog.gruntwork.io/how-to-manage-terraform-state-28f5697e68fa), [2](https://charity.wtf/2016/03/30/terraform-vpc-and-why-you-want-a-tfstate-file-per-env/), [3](https://www.nclouds.com/blog/terraform-multi-state-management/)).
+
+<sup>Icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/prosymbols" title="Prosymbols">Prosymbols</a> and <a href="http://www.freepik.com" title="Freepik">Freepik</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> are licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a></sup>
+

website/src/content/blog/welcome.md

@@ -1,14 +0,0 @@
-+++
-date = "2017-03-02T21:56:55+01:00"
-title = "Welcome to Atlantis"
-tags = ["markdown","example"]
-categories = ["general"]
-draft = false
-description = "First blog post!"
-weight = 10
-+++
-
-# Welcome to Atlantis - This is the first post from us!
-
-
-

website/src/themes/kube/layouts/_default/list.html

@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@
 
 <div id="hero" class="wrap">
   <h1>Blog</h1>
-    <p>Coming soon....<br> </p>
 </div>
 <ul id="posts">
 

website/src/themes/kube/layouts/index.html

@@ -3,40 +3,45 @@
 {{ define "main"}}
 
 <div id="main">
-  <div id="hero">
-    <img class="logo" src="/img/atlantis-logo.png" />
-    <h1>{{.Title}}</h1>
-    <p>{{.Description}}</p>
-  </div>
-  <div id="action-buttons">
-    <a class="button primary big" href="https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis/releases/tag/v0.1.2">Download</a> <a class="button outline big" href="/docs/getting-started">Get Started</a>
-    <p>Version 0.1.2</p>
-  </div>
-  <div id="kube-features">
-    <div class="row gutters">
-      <div class="col col-4 item">
-        <figure>
-          <img alt="Collaborate" height="48" src="/img/collaborate.png" width="48">
-        </figure>
-        <h3>Collaborate on Terraform with your team</h3>
-        <p>Run terraform plan and apply from GitHub pull requests so everyone can review the output</p>
-      </div>
-      <div class="col col-4 item">
-        <figure>
-          <img alt="Lock Environment" height="48" src="/img/locking.png" width="48">
-        </figure>
-        <h3>Lock environments</h3>
-        <p>Lock environments until pull requests are merged to prevent concurrent modification and confusion.</p>
-      </div>
-      <div class="col col-4 item">
-        <figure>
-          <img alt="No need to distribute credentials" height="48" src="/img/no-need-to-distribute-keys.png" width="48">
-        </figure>
-        <h3>No need to distribute credentials</h3>
-        <p>No need to distribute credentials to your whole team. Developers can submit Terraform changes and run plan and apply directly from the pull request.</p>
-      </div>
+    <div id="hero">
+        <img class="logo" src="/img/atlantis-logo.png"/>
+        <h1>{{.Title}}</h1>
+        <p>{{.Description}}</p>
     </div>
-</div>
+    <div id="action-buttons">
+        <a class="button primary big" href="https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis/releases/tag/v0.1.2">Download</a> <a
+            class="button outline big" href="https://github.com/hootsuite/atlantis#getting-started">Get Started</a>
+        <p>Version 0.1.2</p>
+    </div>
+    <div id="kube-features">
+        <div class="row gutters">
+            <div class="col col-4 item">
+                <figure>
+                    <img alt="Collaborate" height="48" src="/img/collaborate.png" width="48">
+                </figure>
+                <h3>Collaborate on Terraform with your team</h3>
+                <p>Run terraform plan and apply from GitHub pull requests so everyone can review the output</p>
+            </div>
+            <div class="col col-4 item">
+                <figure>
+                    <img alt="No need to distribute credentials" height="48" src="/img/no-need-to-distribute-keys.png"
+                         width="48">
+                </figure>
+                <h3>No need to distribute credentials</h3>
+                <p>No need to distribute credentials to your whole team. Developers can submit Terraform changes and run
+                    plan and apply directly from the pull request.</p>
+            </div>
+            <div class="col col-4 item">
+                <figure>
+                    <img alt="Lock Environment" height="48" src="/img/locking.png" width="48">
+                </figure>
+                <h3>Lock environments</h3>
+                <p>Lock environments until pull requests are merged to prevent concurrent modification and
+                    confusion.</p>
+            </div>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <div style="text-align: center; font-size: 21px; line-height: 32px; color: rgba(0,0,0,0.5)"><p>Read about <a href="/blog/atlantis-release/">Why We Built Atlantis</a><p></div>
 </div>
 {{ end }}
 {{ define "footer"}} {{ partial "footer" .}} {{end}}

website/src/themes/kube/static/css/custom.css

@@ -1,2 +1,6 @@
   .logo {
-    height: 200px; }
+    height: 200px; }
+
+  figure figcaption {
+      text-align: center;
+  }