Phase 9: Deployment & CI/CD

Set up production deployment, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and operational readiness.

Purpose

Phase 9 takes the reviewed and approved codebase to production. This phase covers deployment platform selection, CI/CD pipeline configuration, environment management, monitoring, logging, and rollback strategies. A well-configured deployment pipeline ensures reliable, repeatable, and safe releases.

Actions

Action	Description	Example
start	Begin Phase 9	$phase-9-deployment start
platform	Choose deployment platform	$phase-9-deployment platform
ci-cd	Set up CI/CD pipeline	$phase-9-deployment ci-cd
monitoring	Configure monitoring	$phase-9-deployment monitoring
release	Execute production release	$phase-9-deployment release
rollback	Execute rollback procedure	$phase-9-deployment rollback

Deliverables

1. Deployment Configuration - Platform-specific config files
2. CI/CD Pipeline - GitHub Actions workflows (lint, test, build, deploy)
3. Environment Management - Env variable setup per environment
4. Monitoring & Logging - Application monitoring and error tracking
5. Rollback Strategy - Documented rollback procedures
6. Operational Runbook - Incident response and maintenance procedures

.github/
├── workflows/
│   ├── ci.yml                 # Lint, type-check, test on PR
│   ├── deploy-staging.yml     # Deploy to staging on merge to develop
│   └── deploy-production.yml  # Deploy to production on release
├── CODEOWNERS                 # Code ownership
└── pull_request_template.md   # PR template
docker/                        # Docker configuration (Enterprise)
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
└── docker-compose.prod.yml
docs/04-deploy/
├── deployment-guide.md        # Deployment procedures
├── environment-vars.md        # Environment variable reference
├── monitoring-setup.md        # Monitoring configuration
└── runbook.md                 # Operational runbook

Process

Step 1: Choose Deployment Platform

Criteria	Vercel	Netlify	AWS ECS/EKS	Railway	Fly.io
Best for	Next.js	Static/JAMstack	Enterprise	Full-stack	Global edge
Complexity	Low	Low	High	Low	Medium
Scaling	Auto	Auto	Manual/Auto	Auto	Auto
Cost	Free tier	Free tier	Pay-as-you-go	Usage-based	Usage-based
Preview deploys	Yes	Yes	Manual	Yes	Yes

Step 2: CI/CD Pipeline (GitHub Actions)

CI Pipeline (Pull Requests)

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main, develop]
concurrency:
  group: ci-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: 'npm' }
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run type-check
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: 'npm' }
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test -- --coverage
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: [lint, test]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: 'npm' }
      - run: npm ci && npm run build
  security:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm audit --audit-level=high

Deploy to Production

# .github/workflows/deploy-production.yml
name: Deploy Production
on:
  release:
    types: [published]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: production
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: 'npm' }
      - run: npm ci && npm run build
        env:
          NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL: ${{ vars.API_URL }}
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
      - name: Deploy to Vercel
        uses: amondnet/vercel-action@v25
        with:
          vercel-token: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          vercel-org-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          vercel-project-id: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_PROJECT_ID }}
          vercel-args: '--prod'

Step 3: Environment Management

Environment	Branch	Purpose	URL
Development	feature/*	Local development	localhost:3000
Preview	PR branches	PR review	pr-{number}.preview.example.com
Staging	develop	Pre-production testing	staging.example.com
Production	main	Live application	example.com

Environment Variables Reference

Variable	Required	Secret	Description
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL	Yes	No	Public app URL
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL	Yes	No	API base URL
DATABASE_URL	Yes	Yes	Database connection string
AUTH_SECRET	Yes	Yes	JWT signing secret
SENTRY_DSN	No	No	Error tracking DSN

Step 4: Docker Configuration (Enterprise)

FROM node:20-alpine AS base
FROM base AS deps
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

FROM base AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM base AS runner
WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production
RUN addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs && adduser --system --uid 1001 nextjs
COPY --from=builder /app/public ./public
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/standalone ./
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/static ./.next/static
USER nextjs
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

Step 5: Monitoring and Logging

Error Tracking (Sentry)

import * as Sentry from '@sentry/nextjs';
Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SENTRY_DSN,
  tracesSampleRate: 0.1,
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
});

Health Check Endpoint

// app/api/health/route.ts
export async function GET() {
  const health = {
    status: 'ok', timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
    version: process.env.APP_VERSION || 'unknown',
    checks: { database: await checkDatabase() },
  };
  return NextResponse.json(health, { status: health.checks.database === 'ok' ? 200 : 503 });
}

Structured Logging

import pino from 'pino';
export const logger = pino({
  level: process.env.LOG_LEVEL || 'info',
  base: { service: 'my-app', env: process.env.NODE_ENV },
});

Step 6: Rollback Strategy

Platform	Rollback Method
Vercel/Netlify	Dashboard -> Deployments -> Promote previous deployment
Docker/K8s	kubectl rollout undo deployment/my-app
Database	Create forward migration to undo changes (never auto-rollback migrations)

Deployment Checklist

• All Phase 8 review issues resolved
• CI pipeline passing (lint, test, build, security)
• Environment variables configured for target environment
• Database migrations applied and tested
• Health check endpoint operational
• Error tracking configured (Sentry or equivalent)
• Monitoring dashboards set up
• SSL/TLS certificate active
• Custom domain configured and verified
• Rollback procedure documented and tested
• On-call or incident response plan in place

Level-wise Application

Level	Platform	CI/CD	Monitoring
Starter	Vercel or Netlify (zero-config)	GitHub Actions: lint + build	Vercel Analytics
Dynamic	Vercel + BaaS (Supabase/PlanetScale)	GitHub Actions: lint + test + build + deploy	Sentry + Vercel Analytics
Enterprise	AWS ECS/EKS or self-hosted K8s	Full CI/CD: lint + test + build + security + staging + production	Sentry + Datadog/Grafana + PagerDuty

Deployment Patterns

See references/deployment-guide.md for detailed patterns:

• Platform comparison matrix
• CI/CD pipeline templates
• Docker multi-stage build patterns
• Monitoring and alerting setup

PDCA Application

• Plan: Select deployment platform, define pipeline stages
• Design: Configure CI/CD workflows and environment strategy
• Do: Deploy to staging, run smoke tests, deploy to production
• Check: Monitor health checks, error rates, performance metrics
• Act: Fix issues, optimize pipeline, document runbook

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Solution
No staging environment	Always test on staging before production
Secrets in code or CI logs	Use GitHub Secrets, never echo secrets
No health check endpoint	Implement /api/health for every service
No rollback plan	Document and test rollback before first release
Manual deployments	Automate everything with CI/CD
No monitoring	Set up error tracking and uptime monitoring from day one
Skipping database backup	Automate daily backups with retention policy

Output Location

.github/workflows/             # CI/CD pipeline definitions
docker/                        # Docker configuration (Enterprise)
docs/04-deploy/
├── deployment-guide.md
├── environment-vars.md
├── monitoring-setup.md
└── runbook.md

Post-Deployment

After successful production deployment:

1. Verify - Run smoke tests on production
2. Monitor - Watch error rates for 24 hours
3. Communicate - Notify stakeholders of release
4. Document - Update changelog and release notes
5. Iterate - Return to Phase 1 for next feature cycle