We just published version 2.0.0 of the Consul Democracy on AWS by FOSSonCloud pattern to AWS Marketplace. This is the first major-version bump for the pattern since its 1.0.0 release, and it brings the upstream Consul Democracy app from 2.2.0 to 2.5.0 — three minor releases of new civic-tech features, modernized authentication, and a substantial refresh of the underlying deployment tooling.
What’s in this release
Consul Democracy 2.5.0 (up from 2.2.0)
Upstream shipped three minor releases (plus patch releases) between our last shipped version and this one. Highlights across 2.3.0, 2.4.0, and 2.5.0:
Authentication and access control
- OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication support (2.4.0) — drop in any modern identity provider
- Basic SAML authentication support (2.4.0) — for organizations standardized on SAML SSO
- IP-based administrator access restrictions (2.3.0) — lock the admin panel to known networks
- GDPR notification consent requirement (2.4.0)
Polling and participation features
- Open-ended questions in polls (2.4.0) — free-text responses alongside multiple choice
- New poll voting UI (2.4.0)
- Enhanced multipolygon support in budget maps (2.3.0)
- Legislation proposals now appear in the moderation area (2.5.0)
- Admin CSV exports for proposals (2.5.0)
AI / LLM features (opt-in, not enabled by default)
- AI-powered LLM translations (2.5.0) — replaces the deprecated Microsoft Translations integration
- AI-generated image suggestions (2.5.0)
Operations
- Multitenancy management mode (2.3.0) — run multiple instances from one deployment
- Cookie consent banner with preferences modal (2.3.0)
- Portuguese (Portugal) language added (2.3.0)
Platform upgrades
- Rails 7.0 → 7.2 (via 7.1 in 2.4.0, then 7.2 in 2.5.0)
- Ruby 3.2 → 3.3 (2.4.0)
- Node.js 18 → 20 (2.4.0)
- Foundation 6.8.1 upgrade (2.3.0)
Each of the upstream patch releases (2.3.1, 2.4.1) pulled in the latest dependency security fixes. None of the releases between 2.2.0 and 2.5.0 disclosed a named CVE in Consul Democracy itself, but the dependency churn is significant — 2.5.0 ships on a current Rails 7.2 stack.
Pattern-level modernization (not from upstream)
This release also catches the pattern up to the conventions used across the rest of our Marketplace fleet:
- Ubuntu 22.04 → 24.04 for the AMI base
- OE CDK common library
3.20.0→4.5.1(adds versioned AMI parameter support, Aurora PostgreSQL 15.13, and a long list of construct improvements) - aws-cdk-lib
2.120.0→2.225.0 - OE devenv
2.5.3→2.8.3 - Marketplace submission now uses the AWS Marketplace Catalog API end-to-end, replacing the older PLF spreadsheet workflow
- Versioned AMI parameter introduced (
AsgAmiIdv200) — replaces the bareAsgAmiIdso future upgrades don’t silently reuse old AMI IDs - Taskcat regression tests and a pytest integration test scaffold added — this pattern previously had no automated test harness
- Rebrand to “Consul Democracy on AWS by FOSSonCloud” (formerly “Ordinary Experts CONSUL DEMOCRACY Pattern”)
- Fixed the upstream installer clone URL — we were pointing at the legacy
consul/installerorg and now correctly useconsuldemocracy/installer
Fresh deployments
Just subscribe on AWS Marketplace and launch. You’ll need a Route 53 hosted zone and an ACM certificate in advance — everything else the template provisions (VPC, Aurora PostgreSQL, S3 assets bucket, SES with Easy DKIM, ALB, ASG, Route 53 records).
The default instance size is t3.xlarge. Consul Democracy is a Rails monolith with delayed_job workers — you can tune the worker count via the DelayedJobCount parameter (1-10).
What’s next
This release closes a long-standing gap between our Consul Democracy pattern and the rest of our Marketplace fleet — it’s now on the same modernized base as Mastodon, Discourse, and the others. With versioned AMI parameters, taskcat regression tests, and the Catalog API submission flow in place, future Consul Democracy upgrades should land much faster.
If you hit anything in 2.0.0, please open an issue on GitHub.
— FOSSonCloud