# Pc Deployment Strategy

> Use when a release candidate is ready and the team must choose the safest rollout pattern, verification checkpoints, and rollback path for the current risk, blast radius, and operational constraints.

- Skill: `yknothing/pc-deployment-strategy` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add yknothing/pc-deployment-strategy`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/yknothing/pc-deployment-strategy/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: yknothing (https://skillmd.com/u/yknothing)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/yknothing/pc-deployment-strategy

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# Deployment Strategy

> Decide how the release reaches production, how it is verified, and how it is reversed if reality disagrees with the plan.

## Context

CI/CD automates the path to deployment; deployment strategy decides how much risk to take on each step of that path.

See [context](references/context.md) and [anti-pattern](references/anti-patterns.md) notes.

## Inputs

[I/O contract notes](references/io-contract.md) define required inputs and authority.

## Process

### Step 1: Classify Release Risk

Assess user impact, data migration risk, trust-boundary change, reversibility, and observability quality. Decide whether the release is low risk, staged-risk, or high risk.

### Step 2: Choose the Rollout Pattern

Match the pattern to the risk:

- **rolling** for low-risk stateless changes
- **canary** for user-facing or behavior-sensitive changes
- **blue-green** when instant rollback matters more than infrastructure cost
- **big-bang** only when the system or migration constraints truly require it

If the release cannot be observed or rolled back safely, the strategy is wrong.

### Step 3: Define Verification and Expansion Gates

Specify what must be checked before traffic increases:

- smoke tests
- error rate and latency thresholds
- dependency health
- data validation
- business event sanity checks for the changed flow

Tie each checkpoint to an owner and a stop/continue decision.

### Step 4: Write the Rollback-First Runbook

Document the exact release sequence, rollback trigger conditions, rollback commands, communication path, and post-deploy observation window. A rollout plan without a concrete rollback path is incomplete.

## Outputs

Produce only declared outputs at their documented quality boundary.

## Quality Gate

- [ ] Rollout pattern matches the release risk and blast radius
- [ ] Verification checkpoints and stop conditions are explicit
- [ ] Rollback path is concrete, fast, and tested or rehearsed
- [ ] Release ownership and communication path are documented
- [ ] The runbook is specific to this release, not a generic template

## Distribution

- Public install surface: `skills/.curated`
- Canonical authoring source: `skills/06-delivery/pc-deployment-strategy/SKILL.md`
- This package is exported for `npx skills add/update` compatibility.
- Packaging stability: `beta`
- Capability readiness: `beta`
- Portability: `portable_with_caveat`
- Public caveat: Portable as skill guidance; full governance guarantees require the Prodcraft repository contracts and validation checks.