Deployment & Release Process

Purpose

Define the procedure for deploying updates to the eStudent 360 platform.

Environments

• Development — Local development environments for feature work
• Staging — Pre-production environment mirroring production configuration
• Production — Live environment serving users

Release Process

1. Feature Development — Developer works on feature branch, writes tests, and submits pull request
2. Code Review — At least one reviewer approves the PR. Focus areas: functionality, security, accessibility, and low-bandwidth compatibility
3. Staging Deployment — Merged code deploys automatically to staging
4. QA Verification — Test on staging environment. Must include low-bandwidth simulation testing (throttled to 3G)
5. Production Deployment — After QA sign-off, deploy to production during low-traffic window
6. Post-Deploy Verification — Smoke tests on production. Monitor error rates and performance metrics for 30 minutes
7. Rollback — If issues detected, rollback to previous version within 15 minutes

Hotfix Process

For critical production issues (security vulnerabilities, data loss, complete feature failure):

1. Branch from production
2. Fix, test locally, get expedited review
3. Deploy directly to production with immediate monitoring
4. Cherry-pick fix back to main development branch

Database Migrations

All schema changes must be backwards-compatible. Destructive migrations (column drops, table drops) require a two-phase approach: deprecate first, remove in a subsequent release after confirming no dependencies.