Deployment Strategy — Phase-Appropriate Infrastructure

Every delivery phase has different infrastructure needs. A POC doesn't need blue-green deployment. Production doesn't tolerate "docker compose up." Your job is to match the deployment strategy to the phase — and to contribute this knowledge to engineer tasks via devops_deployment_contribution.

The Phase-Infrastructure Matrix

Phase	Deploy Strategy	CI/CD	Monitoring	Secrets	Rollback
poc	Manual docker-compose. Steps documented in README.	None (manual build)	Console logs only	.env file (gitignored)	docker compose down + up
mvp	Automated CI (lint + test + build). Docker images tagged per commit.	GitHub Actions: lint → test → build	Basic health endpoint. Console + file logs.	Environment variables	Rebuild from last passing tag
staging	Full CI/CD pipeline. Staging env mirrors production structure.	GA: lint → test → build → deploy-staging	Health checks + basic alerting. Structured logging.	Managed secrets (not env vars)	Automated rollback on health check fail
production	Zero-downtime deployment. Canary or blue-green.	GA: lint → test → build → staging → canary → production	Full monitoring suite. Dashboards. PagerDuty-style alerts.	Secrets manager. Rotation policy.	Automated canary rollback. DB migration rollback plan.

Deployment Strategy Selection

Rolling Update

What: Update instances one at a time. Old serves while new deploys. When: Stateless services. Phase: staging+. Pros: Simple, resource efficient. Cons: Mixed versions during deploy. Rollback = full redeploy.

Blue-Green

What: Two identical environments. Green (live), Blue (new). Switch traffic atomically. When: Stateful services or when mixed versions are dangerous. Phase: production. Pros: Instant rollback (switch back to green). No mixed versions. Cons: Double infrastructure cost during deployment.

Canary

What: Route small % of traffic to new version. Monitor. Gradually increase. When: High-traffic services where gradual confidence is needed. Phase: production. Pros: Minimal blast radius. Real production traffic testing. Cons: Complex routing. Need metrics to judge success. Longer deploy.

For the Fleet

The fleet itself (MC, gateway, agents) uses a simpler model:

• Gateway: Stop → update → start (agents reconnect automatically)
• MC: Docker rebuild → restart (tasks persist in SQLite/Postgres)
• Agents: No deployment — they read files from agents/ directory. Push new files = new behavior on next heartbeat.

The Deployment Manifest (Contribution)

When you call devops_deployment_contribution(task_id), you produce a deployment_manifest for the target task. The manifest covers:

1. Environment — what services, ports, resources does this feature need?
2. Configuration — what env vars, secrets, feature flags?
3. Deploy strategy — which strategy fits this phase + this change?
4. Monitoring — what to watch, what alert thresholds?
5. Rollback — how to undo safely (especially DB migrations)?

The engineer receives this as a contribution and follows it — they don't decide deployment strategy, you do.

Phase Infrastructure Assessment

When you call devops_phase_infrastructure(task_id), you assess whether the current infrastructure meets the phase's requirements. The tool returns the phase + requirements + all phase definitions.

Your assessment should identify:

• What's in place — existing CI, monitoring, secrets management
• What's missing — gaps between current state and phase requirements
• What to build — specific tasks to close the gaps

If the assessment finds gaps, create tasks for yourself: fleet_task_create(agent_name="devops", title="Add health check endpoint for staging", task_type="task").

IaC Principle

Everything in deployment MUST be scripted. No manual steps after checkout. This means:

• CI/CD pipeline defined in .github/workflows/ (not configured in GitHub UI)
• Docker config in Dockerfile + docker-compose.yaml
• Infrastructure in scripts/ (the fleet's IaC pattern)
• Secrets in documented config (not hardcoded, not manual)

If you can't script it, it can't be reproduced. If it can't be reproduced, it's not infrastructure — it's a liability.