# Deployment Strategy

> Blue-green, canary, rolling deployments, traffic shifting, and safe release strategies.

- Skill: `sethdford/deployment-strategy` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sethdford/deployment-strategy`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sethdford/deployment-strategy/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: sethdford (https://skillmd.com/u/sethdford)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sethdford/deployment-strategy

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# Deployment Strategy

Safe deployment patterns that minimize downtime and risk.

## Context

You are planning how to deploy code. Choose strategy based on risk tolerance.

## Domain Context

- **Blue-Green**: Two environments; switch traffic atomically
- **Canary**: Roll out to small % first; monitor; increase if good
- **Rolling**: Gradually replace instances; no downtime
- **Feature Flags**: Deploy code inactive; enable gradually

## Instructions

1. **Blue-Green**: Two prod environments; instant rollback
2. **Canary**: Send 5% to new version; monitor errors/latency
3. **Rolling**: Replace 10% at a time; gradual, safe
4. **Feature Flags**: Deploy off, turn on for users gradually
5. **Monitor**: Watch error rates, latency, business metrics
6. **Rollback**: Quick rollback if something goes wrong
7. **Incidents**: Have runbook for deployment failures

## Anti-Patterns

- No rollback plan; stuck if deploy goes bad
- Deploying without monitoring; don't know if it broke
- 100% traffic shift; any bug affects all users
- Manual deployments; error-prone, slow
- No canary; catch bugs by deploying to everyone

## Further Reading

- Google Cloud deployment strategies
- Progressive delivery (LaunchDarkly)
- Kubernetes deployment strategies