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What is your CI/CD process, and how do you handle rollbacks and canary deployments?

June 3, 2025
CI/CD Pipeline Overview

Our CI/CD process is structured into distinct stages, each designed to maintain code integrity and facilitate seamless deployments:

Build Stage:

  • Utilize Docker containers to create environment-agnostic builds.
  • Compile assets, perform static code analysis, and generate artifacts.

Test Stage:

  • Execute automated unit and integration tests using frameworks like PHPUnit and Jest.
  • Implement security scans with tools to detect vulnerabilities.

Deploy Stage:

  • Deploy to staging environments for user acceptance testing.
  • Upon approval, promote builds to production using GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
Rollback Mechanisms

To ensure rapid recovery from potential issues, we have established comprehensive rollback strategies:

  • Versioned Deployments:

Tag each release in Git, allowing easy reversion to previous stable states.

  • Artifact Retention:

Store build artifacts in GitLab’s package registry, facilitating the redeployment of prior versions.

  • Automated Rollbacks:

Integrate health checks post-deployment; if anomalies are detected, automated scripts trigger a rollback to the last known good configuration.

Canary Deployments

For critical applications, we employ canary deployment strategies to minimize risk:

  • Incremental Rollouts:

Deploy new versions to a subset of users or servers, monitoring performance before full-scale release.

  • Monitoring and Metrics:

Leverage Prometheus and Grafana to track key performance indicators (KPIs) during canary phases.

  • Traffic Routing:

Utilize Kubernetes Ingress controllers or service meshes like Istio to manage traffic distribution between canary and stable versions.