Deploy

Ship safely with a strict preflight and post-deploy verification loop.

When to Activate

• Preparing a production release
• Verifying a release candidate
• User says "deploy", "ship", or "release"

Inputs to Collect

• Target environment or deployment URL
• Project-specific build and deploy commands
• Any required env vars, secrets, or migration steps
• Scope of the release that is supposed to go out

Workflow

1. Build first

• Run the project build
• Stop immediately if the build fails
• Do not proceed with a broken build

2. Test the release

• Run the relevant test suite
• Stop on any failing test
• Prefer the narrowest test set that still proves the change

3. Check environment and migrations

• Confirm required env vars and secrets exist
• Check whether migrations are needed
• Run migrations in the correct order if the project requires them

4. Review the release scope

• Review the final diff of what is actually being deployed
• Confirm the release matches the intended change
• Do not ship unrelated edits by accident

5. Deploy

• Execute the deploy command
• Watch logs for runtime, infra, or config errors
• Keep the deployment state explicit if the result is uncertain

6. Smoke test

• Hit the critical pages or endpoints after deploy
• Confirm the app works in the target environment
• Use the smallest set of checks that proves the release is healthy

7. Roll back if needed

• If verification fails, stop immediately
• Revert or roll back before retrying
• Investigate the failure before starting a second deploy

Quality Rules

• Never ship with a failing build or test suite
• Never skip the smoke test
• Never hide an uncertain deploy state
• Prefer the smallest safe release window

Examples

• "deploy this to production"
• "ship the release candidate after tests pass"
• "smoke test the staging deploy"

Output Standard

Report:

• deploy command used
• target environment or deployment URL
• build/test status
• smoke test result
• rollback status if anything failed