Deploy Staging

Deploy to Staging

Structured workflow for deploying to staging environment. Builds the application, deploys, runs smoke tests, and verifies the deployment.

0. Detect controller / preview-env tooling — route first

Before running an imperative helm upgrade / kubectl apply against staging, check whether the cluster has a controller-driven flow.

Use the cloud-platforms skill for platform-specific kubectl/helm context (GKE/AKS/EKS).

For supply-chain integrity — staging is the natural validation gate for image signing (Cosign sign + verify), SBOM generation (Syft → CycloneDX), and SLSA provenance attestation. If the project ships any of these in CI, verify they ran successfully on the staging artefact before promoting to production.

1. Pre-Deployment Checks

1a. Verify Branch State

// turbo
git branch --show-current

// turbo
git status --short

• Working directory must be clean
• Branch should be main or a release branch

1b. Run Tests

Invoke /run-tests sub-workflow. All tests must pass before deploying.

1c. Identify Deployment Method

Read CLAUDE.md and project config to determine:

2. Build

Build the application artifact:

Container Build (if applicable)

docker build -t <registry>/<image>:<tag> .

Tag with git SHA or version:

docker tag <image> <registry>/<image>:<git-sha>

3. Deploy to Staging

⚠️ Present deployment plan and request APPROVE before executing.

3a. Kubernetes / Helm

helm upgrade --install <release> <chart> \
  -n staging \
  -f values-staging.yaml \
  --set image.tag=<tag> \
  --dry-run

After APPROVE:

helm upgrade --install <release> <chart> \
  -n staging \
  -f values-staging.yaml \
  --set image.tag=<tag>

3b. Docker Compose

docker compose -f docker-compose.staging.yml up -d

3c. Platform (Netlify, Vercel, etc.)

Follow platform-specific CLI or git-based deployment.

4. Verify Deployment

4a. Health Check

// turbo
kubectl get pods -n staging -o wide

Or curl health endpoint:

curl -s <staging-url>/health

4b. Smoke Tests

Run critical path smoke tests:

• Application starts and responds
• Health endpoint returns 200
• Authentication flow works
• Core API endpoints respond correctly
• Database connectivity verified

4c. Monitor Logs

// turbo
kubectl logs -n staging -l app=<app-name> --tail=50

Check for errors, warnings, or unexpected behavior in the first 2–5 minutes.

5. Memory Write (L4)

Append a deploy event to .ai-skills-memory/runs.jsonl per memory-discipline.md retention rules:

{"ts": "<ISO8601>", "event": "deploy", "env": "staging", "service": "<name>", "version": "<tag>", "method": "k8s|helm|docker|platform", "status": "success|fail", "duration_ms": N, "rollback": false}

6. Summary

## Staging Deployment Summary
- **Version**: [version/tag]
- **Branch**: [branch name]
- **Environment**: staging
- **Method**: [K8s/Helm/Docker/Platform]
- **Build**: [success/fail]
- **Deploy**: [success/fail]
- **Health check**: [pass/fail]
- **Smoke tests**: [pass/fail]
- **Staging URL**: [url]
- **Next steps**: [QA testing / production deploy]

If all checks pass, suggest:

• Run full QA testing on staging
• When ready: /deploy-production

Integration

• Preceded by: /pre-commit, /create-pr (code ready)
• Followed by: /deploy-production
• Roles: Agent(devops-engineer), Agent(devops-architect) (deployment strategy design)
• Memory writes: L4 runs.jsonl (deploy event per Step 5)