Safe Rollout Recipe

deployment

Creates a playbook

These four cards cover the essential components of a safe deployment: understanding impact (Blast Radius), controlled release (Feature Flags, Canary), and recovery (Rollback Strategy).

Required Cards (4)

Blast Radius

intro

The blast radius is the scope of impact when something goes wrong. Smaller blast radius means fewer users affected by a failure.

reliabilitydeploymentrisk

Feature Flags

intro

Feature flags allow you to toggle functionality on or off without deploying new code. They enable gradual rollouts and quick rollbacks.

deploymenttestingrelease

Canary Deployment

intermediate

A canary deployment releases changes to a small subset of users first, allowing you to detect issues before full rollout.

deploymentreliabilitymonitoring

Rollback Strategy

intermediate

A rollback strategy defines how to quickly revert to a previous working state when a deployment causes issues.

deploymentreliabilityoperations

Output: Safe Rollout

When to use

You need to deploy changes to production while minimizing risk to users. Use this playbook when shipping new features, infrastructure changes, or any update that could impact user experience.

Steps

Assess Blast Radius

Determine how many users could be affected if something goes wrong.

Enable Feature Flags

Wrap new functionality in feature flags so you can quickly disable it.

Deploy Canary

Release to a small percentage of traffic first (1-5%).

Gradual Rollout

If canary looks healthy, gradually increase traffic.

Prepare Rollback

Know exactly how to revert if issues arise.

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

Deploying 100% immediately without canary
No feature flags for new functionality

Try crafting this recipe on the crafting board

Open Crafting Board