Migration Guide 🚚

Transitioning your project from another local development tool to Govard is designed to be seamless. Govard understands configuration from popular tools like Warden and DDEV and can automatically orchestrate the transition without data loss.

This guide walks you through migrating an existing project (e.g., from Warden) to Govard.

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Migrating from Warden to Govard

When moving a project from Warden, the primary goals are:

1. Translating the PHP/Node/Database versions to Govard's ecosystem (.govard.yml).
2. Ensuring no data loss by transferring the Database volume.
3. Flushing temporary files/caches with hardcoded paths.

Step 1: Stop the Warden Environment

Before starting the migration, verify your old environment is stopped to prevent data corruption during database synchronization.

cd /path/to/your/project
warden env stop

Step 2: Clean up Application Caches

Warden paths and Govard paths inside the container might be identical (like /var/www/html), but Redis or file-based caching generated via Warden can cause errors if they expect different internal environment variables or configuration states.

For Magento 2 projects, clear out the generated/cache folders:

rm -rf var/cache/* var/page_cache/* generated/code/*

Step 3: Run the Automated Govard Migration

Run the govard init command with the --migrate-from warden flag.

Govard will parse your .env (Warden's variables) and .warden/warden-env.yml settings to automatically suggest the best runtime profile. For Magento 2, Magento 1, and OpenMage projects, Govard also migrates Warden's WARDEN_TABLE_PREFIX value into .govard.yml as table_prefix.

govard init --migrate-from warden

During this process:

1. Govard will generate a .govard.yml mapping your Warden settings to Govard stacks.
2. It will detect your Warden database volume (typically <project>_dbdata).
3. If WARDEN_TABLE_PREFIX is set, Govard will persist it as table_prefix so Magento table names like demo_core_config_data continue to work.
4. You will be prompted:

   Do you want to clone the existing database volume from Warden ('myproject_dbdata') into Govard? [y/N]

5. Type y (Yes). Govard will automatically clone the SQL raw data to its own isolated docker volume behind the scenes.

(Note: The database cloning uses raw cp -a mounted inside Docker, ensuring that file permissions are strictly secured and the process finishes in seconds, bypassing slow mysqldump pipelines).

Step 4: Boot the New Environment

With the configurations parsed and the database safely cloned, simply start Govard.

govard env up

Wait until you see the ✅ php runtime is ready message.

Step 5: Post-Migration Sync (Optional)

Since Govard connects natively via app/etc/env.php (on Magento), you should auto-update the connection strings using Govard's native configuration injector:

govard config auto

If you use Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, remember that search index volumes are not migrated automatically (only primary relational DBs like MariaDB/MySQL). You should re-index the data via your framework:

govard tool magento indexer:reindex

Step 6: Cleanup Warden (Optional)

Once you verify that .test domain works flawlessly and your Admin Panel is blazing fast, you can safely completely tear down Warden to recover SSD space:

warden env down -v

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Manual Database Migration

If you skipped the automated prompt during govard init, you can always clone a database volume manually at any time!

Make sure Govard's DB container is stopped first:

govard env stop db

Then trigger the manual clone command pointing to your old Docker volume:

govard db clone-volume <source_volume_name>

Example for Warden:

govard db clone-volume warden_myproject_dbdata

Example for DDEV:

govard db clone-volume ddev-myproject-db

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