Deployments

A Deployment in GuideMode represents a release of code to an environment. Deployments are synced from code hosting providers (GitHub, GitLab) and are central to DORA metrics like deployment frequency, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery.

Overview

Deployments in GuideMode:

Track releases across multiple environments
Monitor status through the deployment lifecycle
Link to PRs for end-to-end delivery tracking
Power DORA metrics for DevOps performance
Record history of status changes for incident analysis

Environments

Deployments target specific environments:

Environment	Description
`production`	Live environment serving real users
`staging`	Pre-production testing environment
`development`	Development/integration testing
`qa`	Quality assurance testing
`preview`	Ephemeral/temporary environments (PR previews)
`other`	Custom environments

Environment Flags

Flag	Description
`isProduction`	Whether this is a production deployment (for DORA metrics)
`isTransient`	Whether this is an ephemeral environment (excluded from some metrics)

Deployment Status

Deployments progress through a defined status lifecycle:

Status	Description	DORA Impact
`pending`	Deployment triggered, not started	—
`queued`	Waiting in deployment queue	—
`in_progress`	Actively deploying	—
`success`	Deployment completed successfully	Counts for deployment frequency
`failure`	Deployment failed	Counts for change failure rate
`error`	System error during deployment	Counts for change failure rate
`inactive`	Superseded by newer deployment	—

Key Fields

Core Fields

Field	Type	Description
`environment`	enum	Target environment
`currentStatus`	enum	Current deployment status
`ref`	string	Branch, tag, or SHA being deployed
`sha`	string	Git commit SHA
`task`	string	Deployment task (e.g., “deploy”, “rollback”)
`description`	string	Deployment description
`url`	string	URL to deployed environment

Provider Fields

Field	Description
`provider`	Source provider (‘github’, ‘gitlab’, ‘custom’)
`externalId`	Provider’s deployment ID
`apiUrl`	API endpoint for deployment

Creator Information

Field	Description
`creatorId`	User who triggered deployment (GuideMode ID)
`creatorExternalId`	Provider’s user ID
`creatorUsername`	Username of creator

Status History

Every status change is recorded in the deployment status history:

Status Record Fields

Field	Description
`status`	Status at this point in time
`description`	Status message/description
`targetUrl`	URL to the deployed environment
`logUrl`	URL to deployment logs
`createdAt`	When this status was recorded

This history enables:

MTTR calculation - Time from failure to success
Incident analysis - Understanding deployment failures
Retry tracking - Counting deployment attempts

Deployment Lifecycle

Successful Deployment

Failed Deployment with Recovery

PR-Deployment Links

Deployments are linked to the PRs that introduced the code:

Link Methods

Method	Description
`sha_match`	Deployment SHA matches PR merge commit
`webhook`	Provider webhook provided the link
`manual`	Manually linked

These links enable:

Full lead time - Issue → PR → Deployment
Change tracking - Which PRs are in production
Rollback analysis - What was deployed when

DORA Metrics

Deployments power three of the four DORA metrics:

Deployment Frequency

How often you deploy to production:

Frequency = Production deployments / Time period

Elite	High	Medium	Low
Multiple per day	Daily to weekly	Weekly to monthly	Monthly or less

Change Failure Rate

Percentage of deployments that fail:

Failure Rate = (failed deployments / total deployments) × 100

Elite	High	Medium	Low
0-15%	16-30%	31-45%	46%+

Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)

Average time to recover from a failure:

MTTR = Average(success_time - failure_time)

Elite	High	Medium	Low
< 1 hour	< 1 day	< 1 week	> 1 week

Key Timestamps

Timestamp	Description	Used For
`createdAt`	When deployment was triggered	Deployment frequency
`currentStatusUpdatedAt`	When status last changed	Current state tracking

From Status History

Timestamp	Description	Used For
`firstFailureAt`	First failure status	MTTR start
`firstSuccessAt`	First success status	MTTR end

Metadata

The metadata field stores provider-specific deployment data:

{
  "workflow_run_id": 123456,
  "environment_url": "https://preview-123.example.com",
  "deployment_payload": {
    "version": "2.1.0",
    "rollback_sha": "abc123"
  }
}

Deployment Tasks

The task field indicates the type of deployment:

Task	Description
`deploy`	Standard deployment (default)
`deploy:migrations`	Deployment with database migrations
`rollback`	Rollback to previous version

Core Concepts

Pull Requests - PR-to-deployment tracking
Issues - Full delivery chain
Repositories - Repository sync settings

Analytics

Deployment Flow - Deployment analytics
DORA Metrics - DORA metrics details
Guide Rails - Setting deployment frequency and MTTR guide rails

Integrations

GitHub Integration - GitHub deployment tracking