A full production-like setup for a Laravel application using Docker, Kubernetes (via Helm), and GitLab CI/CD pipelines for automation and deployment.

- Laravel + MongoDB + Elasticsearch in containers via **Docker Compose**.

- Laravel app containerized and deployed to **Kubernetes** using **Helm**.

- MongoDB and Elasticsearch are hosted externally (e.g., managed clusters or self-hosted).

- **GitLab CI/CD** pipeline handles:

- Code testing

- Docker image builds

- Simulated Helm-based deployment

| Environment | Description |

|---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------|

| Local | Docker Compose setup for fast development |

| Development | Simulated Kubernetes deployment with custom Helm values |

| Staging | Production-like setup used for testing before going live |

| Production | Fully simulated in CI/CD (no real infra required) |

- **Test**:

Runs unit/integration tests on every merge request to validate code stability.

- **Build**:

Builds and pushes Docker image after a successful merge.

- **Deploy**:

Simulates deploying the app to Kubernetes using Helm.

- `test` stage runs on Merge Requests to `main` branch.

- Merge is blocked if tests fail.

- After merging to `main`, `build` and `deploy` stages run automatically.

- Docker images are pushed to DockerHub or simulated registry.

- Deployment is simulated to an EKS-like cluster using Helm.

docker-compose up --build