Workstation AI Shop: Promoting the AI Sales Storefront Through int → test → acc → prod
GPU machines, an autonomous AI Sales Agent, and a release board stakeholders can read — how shop.workstation.co.uk earns every ring
Workstation AI Shop is where customers configure GPU machines with a fully autonomous AI Sales Agent — the assistant builds the basket, not a static form. That storefront still has to ship safely. Here is how release engineers and stakeholders see the same truth in Ring Promoter: one version, ordered rings int → test → acc → prod, health at every hop. Product: ringpromoter.com · Storefront: shop.workstation.co.uk · Deep dive: long technical article.
Watch on YouTube · Product: ringpromoter.com
What Workstation AI Shop actually is
It is not a brochure site. Punters browse GPU workstations and kits; an autonomous AI Engineer / Sales Agent asks the right questions (workload, budget, GPU class, delivery) and configures the basket for them. Behind the scenes the shop talks to OpsAPI, keeps a live market catalogue, and can hand off to quote or Stripe Checkout when payments are enabled.
That makes the shop both a revenue surface and an AI product. Releases need the same discipline you would give a payments API — because for many buyers, the chat is the sales desk.
The picture release engineers already recognise
In the Orbit console the app is labelled Workstation AI Shop. A recent hop showed commit 7cd70f6 on INT with status Deploying — “has reached int, rings still to earn.” TTFB sat around 71ms from London. Neighbouring apps (OpsAPI, Vault HA, Jobshout agents) sit on the same rings, so the shop is not a special snowflake: it rides the same promotion protocol as the rest of the estate.
Benefits for stakeholders (without the jargon pile)
- One story for every environment. INT is where new builds land first (
int-shop.workstation.co.uk). TEST and ACC soak the AI agent, catalogue and checkout paths. PROD isshop.workstation.co.uk— only after the version has earned each prior ring. - No silent “green deploy, old shop”. Health is checked on the running app. If the new pods never take traffic, the hop fails and rolls back — you do not discover it from angry buyers.
- Humans still own production. Auto-promote can speed early rings; the gate into PROD stays deliberate (password / sign-off). Incidents can still roll back without fighting the gate.
- Shared language with engineering. Orbit and Lanes show how far the newest shop build got. Product and ops look at the same board instead of translating CI logs in a meeting.
- AI sales stays trustworthy. Promoting the agent, the BFF keys and the catalogue together reduces “chat works on INT but lies on PROD” surprises.
Benefits for release engineers
- Promotion is a protocol — one ring at a time; source must be healthy; target must earn it; failure undoes itself; everything is written down (ringpromoter.com).
- CI builds; Ring Promoter moves. Shop images still come from your pipeline; seeding INT and promoting onward is a small, fail-closed API surface.
- Fleet context. When Shop is blue on INT while Vault is green on TEST, you see contention and order of operations without opening six dashboards.
- Friday-safe defaults. Detached operations and per-app locks mean a dropped laptop session cannot leave PROD half-updated.
How this maps to the shop hosts
| Ring | Typical host | Who cares |
|---|---|---|
| INT | int-shop.workstation.co.uk | Engineers — first look at agent + catalogue |
| TEST | Test shop namespace / ring | QA — regressions, market sync, chat turns |
| ACC | Acceptance / staging | Product & sales — basket UX sign-off |
| PROD | shop.workstation.co.uk | Customers — live GPU configuration |
What “good” looks like in a release review
- Newest shop SHA is healthy on INT (agent answers, health endpoint matches version).
- TEST and ACC show the same SHA with soak notes — no half-promoted catalogue.
- PROD still on the previous good version until someone intentionally promotes with the production gate.
- Orbit/Lanes agree with the hosts you can click in a browser.
For the protocol detail, deployers, CI curl surface and shop Helm wiring, read the technical article. For the control plane itself, start at ringpromoter.com or Workstation’s Ring Promoter product page.
Want the same Orbit board for your GPU storefront or AI agent APIs? Talk to Workstation.