Development Process

From Idea to Production

Every feature follows a lightweight but rigorous path to production:

1. Spec or RFC - For non-trivial features, write a short spec covering the problem, proposed solution, and key trade-offs. Share for feedback.
2. Branch - Create a feature branch from main. Branch names follow feature/short-description or fix/short-description.
3. Build - Write the code, tests, and documentation. Commit often with clear messages.
4. Pull Request - Open a PR with a description of what changed and why. Tag relevant reviewers.
5. Review - At least one approval required. Reviewers focus on correctness, edge cases, and maintainability.
6. Merge - Squash-merge to main. CI runs automatically.
7. Deploy - Production deploys happen continuously. Feature flags gate incomplete features.
8. Monitor - Watch dashboards and alerts for the first few hours after deploy.

CI/CD Pipeline

Every push to main triggers:

• Linting and type checking
• Unit and integration tests
• Build verification
• Automated deployment to staging
• Production deploy (after staging verification)

PRs run the same checks before merge is allowed. Broken CI blocks merging - no exceptions.

Feature Flags

Incomplete features are shipped behind feature flags. This lets us:

• Merge to main frequently without blocking other work
• Test features in staging and with internal users before public release
• Gradually roll out features to a percentage of users
• Kill a feature instantly if something goes wrong

Environments

• Local - Your machine. Use the dev server and local databases.
• Staging - Mirrors production. Every merge to main deploys here first.
• Production - The real thing. Deploys are automated but gated by staging health checks.