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The Scenario

You have a staging environment and a production environment. You want:
  • Every version to deploy to staging first
  • Production to only receive versions that passed staging
  • Optional approval before production deploys
  • No manual “okay, staging looks good, now deploy to prod” steps

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Without Ctrlplane

The typical flow:
  1. CI deploys to staging
  2. Someone checks if staging is healthy (maybe)
  3. Someone remembers to trigger the prod deploy
  4. Hopefully they deploy the right version
  5. Hopefully staging actually passed
What goes wrong:
  • “Staging passed” is based on vibes, not metrics
  • The manual promotion step gets forgotten
  • Wrong version deployed to prod
  • No audit trail of what was verified

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With Ctrlplane

Define your environments: 
type: Environment
name: Staging
resourceSelector: resource.metadata["env"] == "staging"
---
type: Environment
name: Production
resourceSelector: resource.metadata["env"] == "production"
Add an environment progression policy: 
type: Policy
name: Staging Before Production
selectors:
  - environment: environment.name == "Production"
rules:
  - environmentProgression:
      waitFor: Staging
Add verification to staging: 
type: Policy
name: Staging Verification
selectors:
  - environment: environment.name == "Staging"
rules:
  - verification:
      metrics:
        - name: health-check
          provider:
            type: http
            url: "https://{{.resource.config.host}}/health"
          successCondition: result.statusCode == 200
          intervalSeconds: 30
          count: 10  # 5 minutes of health checks
Add approval for production: 
type: Policy
name: Production Approval
selectors:
  - environment: environment.name == "Production"
rules:
  - anyApproval:
      minApprovals: 1

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What Happens

  1. CI creates v1.2.3 — Version is marked ready
  2. Staging release created — Deploys immediately (no gates)
  3. Staging verification runs — 5 minutes of health checks
  4. Staging passes → Production is unblocked
  5. Approval requested — Notification sent to approvers
  6. Approval granted — Team lead approves
  7. Production deploys — Version goes live
  8. Production verification — Confirms health in prod
If staging verification fails, production never receives the version. No manual intervention needed to block it.

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Key Benefits

BenefitHow It Works
Enforced orderingProduction physically cannot deploy before staging
Verified promotionOnly versions that pass verification can promote
Audit trailFull history of what was verified and when
Optional approvalAdd human gates where needed
Automatic flowNo manual “deploy to prod” step

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Variations

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Multiple Pre-Production Environments

# QA → Staging → Production
- name: Staging After QA
  selectors:
    - environment: environment.name == "Staging"
  rules:
    - environmentProgression:
        waitFor: QA

- name: Production After Staging  
  selectors:
    - environment: environment.name == "Production"
  rules:
    - environmentProgression:
        waitFor: Staging

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Different Verification per Environment

# Light verification in QA
- name: QA Verification
  selectors:
    - environment: environment.name == "QA"
  rules:
    - verification:
        metrics:
          - name: smoke-test
            count: 3  # Quick check

# Thorough verification in Staging
- name: Staging Verification
  selectors:
    - environment: environment.name == "Staging"
  rules:
    - verification:
        metrics:
          - name: integration-tests
            count: 10  # Longer check
          - name: performance-baseline
            count: 5

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Skip Staging for Hotfixes

Use version metadata to bypass staging for critical fixes: 
- name: Hotfix Direct to Prod
  selectors:
    - environment: environment.name == "Production"
    - version: version.metadata["hotfix"] == "true"
  rules:
    - anyApproval:
        minApprovals: 2  # Require more approvals for hotfixes
    # No environment progression rule = skip staging

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Next Steps

Environment Progression

Configure progression rules

Verification

Set up health checks

Approvals

Configure approval workflows

Multi-Region

Add gradual rollouts within production