For Tanguy: Version Switching App?

[Josh Barron]

@Tanguy Crusson In the recent videos you've posted you are regularly switching between branches/versions of the app.  It appears that you're doing this within a browser extension.  Can you provide more information about this extension and point me to a source when I might learn more about this solution for version management demos?  I'd really appreciate the help!

[Tanguy Crusson · Accepted solution]

@Josh Barron it's not a public thing, it's part of internal tooling at Atlassian. It enables us to switch the Jira UI to a feature branch in Bitbucket. We also have another one to turn feature flags from LaunchDarkly on/off. All of that only works in our staging environments. 

It's pretty handy!

[Josh Barron]

I like it.  I think it could be incredibly useful.  To build it, I'm thinking that

1. my authorization to do work in any/all of the versions must be set externally.
2. using that access, go to the appropriate non-production url to log in.
3. The shell that is provided understands that it is in a non-production environment and loads the default codebase for dev.
4. Additionally, it loads the dev-only toolbox menu, which allows me to, on the fly, authenticate with, load, and use all of the other published front-end environments and versions.
5. I'd also need a management interface to which any new branch is registered before deployment is allowed.
6. My new management interface would need to allow creation or association of any new branch with a particular branch of the appropriate back-end code, services, components, and schemas.
7. Each new backend branch will need to be logged as a Compass component, along with their respective frontend version dependencies, so that changes to any backend version will not unintentionally break a related frontend version.  
8. Finally, I'd need a standard data set that is automatically/easily loaded to populate any new instance of the back end schema before modifications are made in the process of developing the new branch/feature.

Maybe you've reduced this list by only making the feature available in staging.  That would reduce the overhead of managing this, I think.

Maybe I've just outlined your next big improvement to Bitbucket ... something that completely sets it apart from other version control systems and makes it a clear and distinctive choice above its competitors like GitHub.  If so, please make sure that my royalties from brainstorming this aspect of your next enhancement include free use (for my employer) of all Atlassian products so long as ... um, I'm employed and alive.  ;)