Document expectations around development and local database instances

[TangoYankee]

Background

PR #198 introduces a remote 'development' database that is available to local development. We should have a team discussion to ensure we have consistent and maintainable expectations around the use of this environment.

Acceptance criteria

• Reach a consensus on DB usage
• Document in the readme

[TangoYankee]

My philosophy is to have a one to one relationship between application and database instances. In other words, a development database should exclusively serve one development application. Accordingly, local applications would be served by only local database instances.

However, I recognize that some folks will want to avoid setting up the database locally just to make changes to the API. As a compromise, I suggest we still provide the development database. However, it is only used for tickets that do not require database schema changes. Any work that requires modifications to the database schema must be done against a local database instance.

[damonmcc]

The changes in #198 are so that a deployed remote API can use a remote database (dev, staging, or prod)

If making it impossible for a local API to use a remote DB is a requirement, any ideas on how that can be prevented?

[TangoYankee]

If making it impossible for a local API to use a remote DB is a requirement

Documenting an offline discussion around this:
Making it technically impossible for a local api to use a remote db is a non-goal. This is more about establishing cultural workflow expectations