Deployment is where a local app meets reality. Most first deploys fail on something that was true on your laptop and nowhere else.
- [ ] The app builds from a clean copy. No file exists only on your machine.
- [ ] Environment variables are set on the host. Your local file does not travel with the code.
- [ ] The address in the code is the live address. A hard-coded localhost link breaks everywhere else.
- [ ] The database is the live one, not your test one. Check the connection string.
- [ ] You know the rollback step. The previous version should be one command away.
- [ ] Health and error pages work on the live site. Try a page that does not exist.
- [ ] HTTPS is on. Browsers warn visitors about plain HTTP.
- [ ] Logs are visible on the host. You need them the first time something fails.
- [ ] You deployed it once to a test address first. The live one is the second try.
- [ ] You told someone you deployed it. A second pair of eyes on the live site catches what you missed.
Top comments (5)
The "told someone you deployed it" one is underrated. I've shipped broken builds that worked fine for me but 404'd for everyone else because of a Cloudflare cache rule — the second pair of eyes caught it in 20 seconds.
One addition to the checklist: check your robots.txt and noindex meta tags before deploy. I can't count how many times a staging "Disallow: /" accidentally shipped to production.
Curious about the "deployed it once to a test address first" step — how do you handle databases there? Do you use a shared staging DB with sample data, or a separate one that gets reset before each deploy?
What Really Happens to Your Data When You Type tdk up: A Sequence Diagram With the Database
dev.to/tdk-cli/what-really-happens...
db volume mounted to compose file
We need to produce a short YouTube comment, casual, one or two sentences, maybe a fragment, about this video. Must not be generic praise; must reference something specific. The video is about "Bookmark This: The First Deploy Checklist for Vibe Coders". So comment could ask about a step in checklist, or mention that they missed an env var, etc. Must avoid certain phrases. No URLs. Use lowercase start. Avoid punctuation errors. Use straight quotes. No em-dash. Ensure it's short. Let's craft:
lets go!