Hotfix Release Process

  2 minute read  

What is a hotfix?

intelliHR uses hotfixes to deploy code changes outside of the normal release process.

What determines that a hotfix is required?

Criteria for a hotfix:

  • previously unknown bug or defect interfering with service
    1. no workaround available
    2. considered P2 level severity or above
  • requirement to enable business critical customer graduation or partnership milestone
  • anything deemed to be significantly detrimental to platform security, or data security
  • change of minimal development work (for example, measurable in hours)

If a fix does not meet these criteria, another mitigation strategy might be required. This might be a hotfix of a different approach (for example, disabling a feature or page).

Who approves or prompts a hotfix?

Hotfixes are only approved by the Senior QA Engineer, a Principal Engineer or a Board Executive. Anyone may request a hotfix from these representatives.

How do you make the MR for a hotfix?

  1. Ensure GitLab issue exists in relevant repository defining the problem
  2. Start a branch from main and MR, named with that issue number (for example, 2324-add-cutoffdate-to-return-from-pulse-graphql-type-and-revise-spa-accordingly). The GitLab interface will do this automatically GitLab MR button
  3. Make changes to codebase
  4. Commit changes and push back to GitLab
  5. MR is reviewed and merged by peers and/or stakeholders
  6. Change will be auto-deployed to develop environment
  7. Manually test issue on develop environment. Ensure your testing conditions on develop environment are fit for purpose
  8. Once confirmed, request hotfix for this MR with @topic-hotfix mention in #tech-ihr-hotfix channel

How do you deploy a hotfix (and who should be informed)?

  1. Hotfix approvers will create a hotfix MR intellibot commands
  2. The new hotfix branch will be pushed to UAT by hotfix approver via intellibot commands
  3. Test fix is correct on UAT with stakeholders
  4. Ask Hotfix approver to merge change into production via intellibot commands
  5. Communicate with stakeholders, CS or AM representatives for testing on production

Congratulations! The hotfix is on it’s way to production

Please Node: The code may need to be manually merged back into main after this process. Depending on the nature of the fix and the approach taken by the Hotfix team.