Essay · 30 min read

How to Deploy Software

Zach Holman · zachholman.com Free Intermediate

Holman was an early GitHub engineer and this is the single most complete plain English essay on what a healthy deploy looks like, covering branches, staging, code review, and rollbacks without turning it into heavy process. He is clear that the goal is confidence, not paperwork, so you keep shipping often. Use it as the menu you pick two or three things from, not a checklist to adopt whole.

  • A good deploy is boring, reversible, and frequent
  • Keep the main branch always deployable and review risky changes
  • A fast rollback matters more than preventing every mistake
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The question it answers

  1. How should our shipping process change once we hire our first engineer and it is no longer just me pushing to production?

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