nsheaps/deploy

Deployment

Guidelines for deploying and releasing software.

Workflow

Step 1: Pre-Deployment Checklist

Before deploying:

• [ ] All tests pass in CI
• [ ] Code review approved
• [ ] No known blocking issues
• [ ] Deployment plan documented (if non-trivial)
• [ ] Rollback strategy identified

Step 2: CI/CD Pipeline

• CI should be easily reproducible locally using the same source of truth
• CI failures are considered validation failures regardless of local results
• Pipelines should be fast — parallelize independent steps
• Keep pipeline configuration DRY (reusable workflows/actions)

Step 3: Release Strategy

Choose appropriate strategy for the change:

| Strategy | When to use | | ------------- | ------------------------------------ | | Rolling | Low-risk changes, stateless services | | Blue-green | Need instant rollback capability | | Canary | High-risk changes, gradual rollout | | Feature flags | Decoupling deploy from release |

Step 4: Post-Deployment Validation

After deploying:

• Run smoke tests against the deployed environment
• Monitor error rates and key metrics
• Verify the change works as expected in production
• Keep rollback ready for a defined period

Anti-Patterns

| Anti-Pattern | Instead | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------- | | Manual deployments | Automate with CI/CD | | No rollback plan | Always have a rollback strategy | | Skipping staging | Validate in a staging environment first | | Big-bang releases | Deploy incrementally | | Deploy on Friday | Deploy when you can monitor the result |