At TrueCMS, we start every new customer on the same foundation: the Vortex Template scaffold. It gives teams a proven, production‑grade baseline for delivery automation, testing automation, and security automation from day one. We combine this scaffold with our in‑house know‑how for fully automated security updates that are delivered into a dedicated UAT environment — so stakeholders wake up to overnight UAT without the late‑night firefighting.
Why this is our default go‑to scaffold
The Vortex Template is a Drupal project template designed for real‑world teams. Out‑of‑the‑box it standardises the way projects are built, tested, and deployed so you can move fast without reinventing the wheel on every engagement.
For source code and implementation details, see the upstream repository: drevops/vortex.
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End‑to‑end CI/CD: First‑class support for modern CI providers such as GitHub Actions and CircleCI, with compatibility for GitLab CI. Reusable workflows and environment‑aware jobs keep pipelines consistent.
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Automated testing by default: Coding standards, static analysis, unit and functional test harnesses are wired in from the start (PHPCS, PHPStan, PHPUnit, Behat) with clear conventions for running locally and in CI. Visual regression can be added with Diffy for pixel checks on key templates.
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Rapid, containerised developer experience: A Docker Compose stack provides a full local environment that mirrors production services — Nginx + PHP‑FPM, MariaDB, Solr search, Valkey/Redis cache, ClamAV malware scanning, and mail testing — so changes are exercised end‑to‑end before they ever hit a branch.
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Upgrade helpers: Composer automation (including composer-patches) and Rector support streamline routine upgrades and framework transitions.
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Multi‑platform delivery: The scaffold supports common hosting platforms (GovCMS, Lagoon, Acquia) so the same pipeline and conventions travel with you as environments change.
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Observability ready: Hooks for New Relic application monitoring ensure deployments are measurable and regressions are visible.
Together, these features make the scaffold the foundation for automation testing, automation, and delivery automation — the three pillars that keep quality high while cycle times stay low.
How we extend it for security autopilot
We layer our “Security Autopilot” practices on top of the scaffold so updates flow continuously:
- Monitor and prioritise advisories.
- Automate Composer patching in a dedicated update branch.
- Run the full quality‑gate suite in CI (lint, static analysis, unit, Behat, and Playwright smoke).
- If all gates pass, deploy overnight to the dedicated UAT environment for morning sign‑off.
This removes manual toil, reduces time‑to‑patch, and gives product owners transparent, repeatable releases.
Additional testing layer: Playwright for Drupal
In addition to Behat and unit tests, we add an extra layer of end‑to‑end coverage using our Playwright setup for Drupal projects: drupal‑playwright. It standardises Playwright in Docker with TypeScript templates and CI integration, enabling fast cross‑browser smoke and regression suites that fit neatly into the scaffold’s pipelines.
What you get on day one
- Consistent branch and environment workflow aligned to enterprise CI/CD.
- Reproducible local environment with parity to test and production services.
- Quality gates that block regressions before they merge.
- Multi‑platform deployment support without re‑engineering the pipeline.
- Built‑in hooks for observability and rollbacks.
If you’re starting a new project or modernising an existing one, this is the shortest path from “git init” to reliable releases. Book a walkthrough and we’ll show you how we tailor the scaffold to your hosting, controls, and roadmap.