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
