Deployment

Once you've created and configured your ActiveState project, you need to deploy it to your local development environment or production systems. This section covers all deployment methods and integration options.

Deployment Methods

Local Development

• Checkout and Activate - Deploy projects to your local machine
• Multiple Deployment Options - Various ways to structure your local projects

Production and Distribution

• Offline Installers - Create standalone installers for air-gapped environments
• Docker Integration - Deploy projects in containerized environments

Development Environment Integration

• IDE Integration - Connect projects to popular development environments:
  • Visual Studio Code
  • PyCharm
  • Jupyter Notebooks

Key Concepts

Runtime Deployment

When you deploy an ActiveState project, you're installing:

• Language runtime - The core interpreter/compiler (Python, Perl, etc.)
• Packages and dependencies - All libraries and tools specified in your project
• Platform-specific binaries - Compiled components for your target OS/architecture
• Configuration - Environment variables and settings

Deployment Strategies

Virtual Environment (Recommended for Development)

• Isolated from system packages
• Use state shell to activate
• Safe for experimentation
• Easy to clean up

System Integration

• Use state use to set as default
• Available system-wide
• Affects global environment
• Good for primary development runtime

Containerized Deployment

• Fully isolated environments
• Reproducible across systems
• Good for production deployments
• Integrates with CI/CD pipelines

Deployment Locations

Local Checkout Directory

• Contains activestate.yaml configuration file
• Lightweight reference to your project
• Used for project management commands

Runtime Cache Directory

• Contains actual runtime binaries and packages
• Managed automatically by State Tool
• Shared across multiple checkouts of the same project

Platform Support

ActiveState projects support deployment on:

• Windows - Windows 10/11, Windows Server
• macOS - macOS 10.15+ (Intel and Apple Silicon)
• Linux - Various distributions with compatible glibc

Security Considerations

Network Requirements

• Initial download requires internet connectivity
• Offline installers work in air-gapped environments
• Corporate firewalls may need configuration

Permissions

• User-level installation (no admin rights required)
• Isolated from system packages
• Configurable installation paths

Supply Chain Security

• All packages are built and tested by ActiveState
• Cryptographic verification of downloads

🗃️ IDE Integrations

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📄️ Checkout and Activate Projects

This is the comprehensive guide to deploying ActiveState projects on your local machine. If you're just getting started, you may want to begin with the First Steps guide for a streamlined introduction.

📄️ Offline Installers

Offline installers let you install a runtime environment in a system whose security or compliance parameters may prohibit the installation of regular ActiveState runtimes. Offline installers can be installed in air-gapped systems, as well as systems with no live network or internet connection. Installers are available for all Perl, Python, and Ruby projects and are available for the following operating systems as executable installers:

📄️ Run a Project in Docker

Using the State Tool you can easily embed an ActiveState language runtime inside a Docker container, and then use that runtime to run first party code. This is currently only available using Linux containers.