Update Drupal using composer with a proper development workflow

I do lot of small changes and tweaks directly on production and of course production has latest content as well. So from time to time I refresh my local with production but I also do this when I have to upgrade a site.

1. Take mysqldump of production database and save it in files/database/YYYY-MM-DD.tar.gz
2. Git push (it won't have files directory). Do this if you installed new module directly on production or done some changes to the theme css.
3. Go to local and rsync files directory (that has images and latest database). Change the path accordingly.

rsync --dry-run -av user@production:/PATH_TO_LIVE_SITE/sites/default/files/ files/

1. Now local has files/ directory from live.
2. Restore database. Now local has live database.
3. Perform git pull and it will have any modules or theme changes done on production.
4. Run composer install (if you installed any module on production). I always run this. Just in case.
5. Clear cache vendor/bin/drupal cache:rebuild all
6. Now you have local running as same configuration and content from production.

If you are running on Drupal 8.8.5 and above then this should work.

composer update drupal/core-recommended --with-dependencies
drush updatedb
vendor/bin/drupal cache:rebuild all

Also refer to this page for up to date information on how to update Drupal using Composer.

Now you have local running on updated Drupal site with latest content and files from live. Celebrate!

git add .
git commit -m "updating to Drupal 8.8.8"
git push

Time to test your site on staging. Good opportunity to make sure it works on production environment.

1. Go to your staging directory and bring the files from the repository by doing git pull
2. Also bring the new files from production site.

rsync --dry-run -avv user@production:/PATH_TO_LIVE_SITE/sites/default/files/ /PATH_TO_STAGING_SITE/sites/default/files/

1. From the files/database directory restore the mysql database on staging
2. At this staging you have latest files from production, latest database from production and latest upgrade code from local which usually in the composer.json and composer.lock files. The last thing you need to do on staging is to use composer to bring new files need for the update.

composer install
drush updatedb
vendor/bin/drupal cache:rebuild all

Now your staging is updated.

Ready to update live? Lets do it.

git pull
composer install
drush updatedb
vendor/bin/drupal cache:rebuild all

Simple right? Your live already has the latest database and files. We just need to bring the latest updated composer.json and composer.lock, along with any other changes to theme that you may have done on local.

Now time to open a beer and celebrate.