- name
- release-management
- description
- Deep release management workflow—versioning semantics, branching and tags, release checklist, communications, rollback criteria, and hotfix discipline. Use when shipping software on a cadence or coordinating multi-team releases.
Release Management (Deep Workflow)
Releases combine coordination and risk management: what ships, when, how we verify, and how we recover.
When to Offer This Workflow
Trigger conditions:
- Scheduled or train-based releases; need predictable cadence
- Hotfix chaos or unclear ownership
- SemVer vs calendar versioning debates
Initial offer:
Use six stages: (1) versioning policy, (2) branching & tags, (3) release candidate & checklist, (4) communication, (5) deploy & verify, (6) post-release & hotfixes). Confirm deployment model (continuous delivery vs batch releases).
Stage 1: Versioning Policy
Goal: Define SemVer (or alternative) rules: what counts as breaking, how migrations are communicated, and how pre-releases work.
Exit condition: Written policy linking version numbers to customer-facing risk.
Stage 2: Branching & Tags
Goal: Choose a strategy (trunk-based with release branches, GitFlow-lite, etc.) and use annotated tags tied to changelog entries.
Stage 3: Release Candidate & Checklist
Goal: Freeze criteria: QA scope, DB migrations dry-run, feature flag defaults, config diffs, load/perf smoke for risky changes.
Stage 4: Communication
Goal: Internal notes for support/CS/SRE; external release notes with breaking changes highlighted and migration steps.
Stage 5: Deploy & Verify
Goal: Canary or progressive rollout where possible; SLO dashboards; rollback trigger agreed before deploy starts.
Stage 6: Post-Release & Hotfixes
Goal: Lightweight retro; hotfix branches from the release tag; forward-merge fixes back to main; track incidents linked to release.
Final Review Checklist
- [ ] Versioning and changelog reflect risk
- [ ] Branch/tag strategy is team-wide consensus
- [ ] Checklist covers migrations, flags, QA, and comms
- [ ] Rollback plan rehearsed or documented
- [ ] Hotfix process defined
Tips for Effective Guidance
- Smallest releasable increment reduces blast radius.
- Coordinate DB schema changes with expand/contract patterns when zero-downtime matters.
- Complement with ci-cd and changelog-authoring skills for tooling depth.
Handling Deviations
- SaaS with heavy feature-flagging: “release” may be continuous—still document communication and flag cleanup discipline.