About
Production deployment principles and decision-making. Safe deployment workflows, rollback strategies, and verification. Teaches thinking, not scripts.
name: deployment-procedures description: "Production deployment principles and decision-making. Safe deployment workflows, rollback strategies, and verification. Teaches thinking, not scripts." risk: critical source: community date_added: "2026-02-27"
Deployment Procedures
Deployment principles and decision-making for safe production releases. Learn to THINK, not memorize scripts.
⚠️ How to Use This Skill
This skill teaches deployment principles, not bash scripts to copy.
- Every deployment is unique
- Understand the WHY behind each step
- Adapt procedures to your platform
1. Platform Selection
Decision Tree
What are you deploying?
│
├── Static site / JAMstack
│ └── Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages
│
├── Simple web app
│ ├── Managed → Railway, Render, Fly.io
│ └── Control → VPS + PM2/Docker
│
├── Microservices
│ └── Container orchestration
│
└── Serverless
└── Edge functions, Lambda
Each Platform Has Different Procedures
| Platform | Deployment Method | |----------|------------------| | Vercel/Netlify | Git push, auto-deploy | | Railway/Render | Git push or CLI | | VPS + PM2 | SSH + manual steps | | Docker | Image push + orchestration | | Kubernetes | kubectl apply |
2. Pre-Deployment Principles
The 4 Verification Categories
| Category | What to Check | |----------|--------------| | Code Quality | Tests passing, linting clean, reviewed | | Build | Production build works, no warnings | | Environment | Env vars set, secrets current | | Safety | Backup done, rollback plan ready |
Pre-Deployment Checklist
- [ ] All tests passing
- [ ] Code reviewed and approved
- [ ] Production build successful
- [ ] Environment variables verified
- [ ] Database migrations ready (if any)
- [ ] Rollback plan documented
- [ ] Team notified
- [ ] Monitoring ready
3. Deployment Workflow Principles
The 5-Phase Process
1. PREPARE
└── Verify code, build, env vars
2. BACKUP
└── Save current state before changing
3. DEPLOY
└── Execute with monitoring open
4. VERIFY
└── Health check, logs, key flows
5. CONFIRM or ROLLBACK
└── All good? Confirm. Issues? Rollback.
Phase Principles
| Phase | Principle | |-------|-----------| | Prepare | Never deploy untested code | | Backup | Can't rollback without backup | | Deploy | Watch it happen, don't walk away | | Verify | Trust but verify | | Confirm | Have rollback trigger ready |
4. Post-Deployment Verification
What to Verify
| Check | Why | |-------|-----| | Health endpoint | Service is running | | Error logs | No new errors | | Key user flows | Critical features work | | Performance | Response times acceptable |
Verification Window
- First 5 minutes: Active monitoring
- 15 minutes: Confirm stable
- 1 hour: Final verification
- Next day: Review metrics
5. Rollback Principles
When to Rollback
| Symptom | Action | |---------|--------| | Service down | Rollback immediately | | Critical errors | Rollback | | Performance >50% degraded | Consider rollback | | Minor issues | Fix forward if quick |
Rollback Strategy by Platform
| Platform | Rollback Method | |----------|----------------| | Vercel/Netlify | Redeploy previous commit | | Railway/Render | Rollback in dashboard | | VPS + PM2 | Restore backup, restart | | Docker | Previous image tag | | K8s | kubectl rollout undo |
Rollback Principles
- Speed over perfection: Rollback first, debug later
- Don't compound errors: One rollback, not multiple changes
- Communicate: Tell team what happened
- Post-mortem: Understand why after stable
6. Zero-Downtime Deployment
Strategies
| Strategy | How It Works | |----------|--------------| | Rolling | Replace instances one by one | | Blue-Green | Switch traffic between environments | | Canary | Gradual traffic shift |
Selection Principles
| Scenario | Strategy | |----------|----------| | Standard release | Rolling | | High-risk change | Blue-green (easy rollback) | | Need validation | Canary (test with real traffic) |
7. Emergency Procedures
Service Down Priority
- Assess: What's the symptom?
- Quick fix: Restart if unclear
- Rollback: If restart doesn't help
- Investigate: After stable
Investigation Order
| Check | Common Issues | |-------|--------------| | Logs | Errors, exceptions | | Resources | Disk full, memory | | Network | DNS, firewall | | Dependencies | Database, APIs |
8. Anti-Patterns
| ❌ Don't | ✅ Do | |----------|-------| | Deploy on Friday | Deploy early in week | | Rush deployment | Follow the process | | Skip staging | Always test first | | Deploy without backup | Backup before deploy | | Walk away after deploy | Monitor for 15+ min | | Multiple changes at once | One change at a time
