MEDIUMArchitecturesmallCI/CD & DevOps

Build the artifact once and promote it across environments

Produce one immutable build artifact and promote that same artifact through staging to production.

Why This Matters

Rebuilding per environment means the artifact tested in staging is not the one deployed to prod.

Related Rules

Pin Dependency Versions

Security

HIGH

Use Environment Variables for Config

Security

HIGH

Run lint and tests on every PR and block merge on failure

Architecture

HIGH

Fail the build fast on any error

Architecture

MEDIUM

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Why this matters

If you rebuild for each environment, staging and production run different bytes, so passing tests in staging guarantees nothing for prod. Build once, tag it, and promote the identical artifact.

Bad

deploy-staging: { steps: [{ run: "docker build -t app ." }] }
deploy-prod:    { steps: [{ run: "docker build -t app ." }] }  # rebuilt

Good

build:  { steps: [{ run: "docker build -t app:$SHA ." }, { run: "docker push app:$SHA" }] }
deploy-staging: { steps: [{ run: "deploy app:$SHA staging" }] }
deploy-prod:    { steps: [{ run: "deploy app:$SHA prod" }] }  # same image