Signs it is time to revisit continuous deployment

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. A few signals that continuous deployment is due some attention.

Code gets read far more often than it gets written, and usually by someone with less context than the author had. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Deploying should be boring enough to do on a Friday
• Automate the checks you would otherwise forget

How we handle it

Small frequent releases are safer than big rare ones. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

In practice

Most development decisions are really maintenance decisions wearing a different hat. Three things worth confirming about continuous deployment before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Small frequent releases are safer than big rare ones — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.