If you want to use Drush make to maintain your codebases (and, as I've written before, I think you should) then one of the things you really need is a basic deployment framework. This must fill in the functionality gaps in a simple Drush make run:
- Populate e.g. your files directory using e.g. rsync of your production files, on initial local build
- Include custom non-project client code - a sites/default - along with the d.o projects and libraries that Drush make puts in sites/all
- Swap a new codebase in place of the old one, preserving the files directory and any other local customisations (custom settings.php etc.)
- Configure using Drush site aliases, so it's easy to set up
- Work with the forthcoming Drush 6 release
Interested? Well, why not try Drush instance? This is a Drush command (written by me), available on d.o, and inspired by the frameworks we've built and rebuilt at Torchbox every few years. It does all of the above and - hopefully, eventually - much more.
The project is now out of alpha, as all the major feature tickets are closed: I hope to have at least some of the remaining requests/bugfixes done by Drupal Camp North West in late November. It's really helped that Torchbox are very kindly trialling it themselves already, and it seems to be working pretty well: so why not give it a whirl yourself?
