This folder contains documentation relating to the Birthdays service, including Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), and other context associated with this project.
This project runs in AWS and is described using the Guardian CDK which is extended from the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) project.
The Pressreader lambdas configuration is in the Pressreader GitHub repository, and configuration changes are rolled out by creating a PR for changes, merging that PR and having the changes by released by continuous delivery.
There is further documentation on how the configuration affects what is published.
Lambda logs can be viewed using the app: pressreader filter in Kibana on logs.gutools.co.uk.
Monitoring on lambda errors is configured in ./cdk/lib/pressreader.ts, and will send alarm events to newsroom.resilience+alerts@guardian.co.uk.
Lambda errors, invocations and duration can be visualised in Grafana.
The edition configuration specifies a set of collections on Guardian web fronts that the script extracts stories from. Sometimes these collections are removed or renamed. When the script fails to find an expected collection is will send alarm notifications to newsroom.resilience+notifications@guardian.co.uk. These notifications don't include details about the missing collections, but more information can be found by searching the project logs.
nb. collection lookup failure is not a fatal issue. However, it's best to catch it early, so that the Pressreader editions remain relevant, and because it should be easier to work out what's been changed sooner after the fact.
In theory a collection could be added and removed from a front a few times within a short period (e.g. over the New Year period when News Extra was temporarily replaced on the AU front by some end-of-year roundup collections). This caused some unnecessary noise in the alerts, but so far this has only happened once. If it happens more often, we might want to rethink the alerting strategy.