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How do I promote a release to production?

Keyword: How do I promote a release to production?

Promotion in SmartTouch is a pull request workflow. A merge to main deploys to staging automatically. A release tag opens a pull request against the prod overlay, which requires a Platform Engineer or Administrator to approve.

Goal

Promote the Remote Access Service from staging to prod.

Prerequisites

  • The service is deployed and healthy in staging
  • Smoke tests against staging have passed
  • You have a GitHub account with write access to the repository

Promotion path

dev    ← automatic on every PR merge to main
  ↓
staging  ← automatic on every merge to main (after dev is healthy)
  ↓
prod     ← requires a tagged release + manual PR approval

Steps

Step 1—Verify staging is healthy

Before creating a release, confirm the service is running correctly in staging:

stctl status --env staging --service remote-access-service

Expected:

Status:    Running
Replicas:  2/2 ready
Image:     harbor.smarttouch.io/myteam/remote-access-service:1.1.0

Run a full probe against staging:

stctl remote-access probe --env staging

Expected:

✔  Probe session opened and closed successfully
Broker latency: 22ms

Step 2—Create a release tag

Tag the commit on main that you want to release:

git checkout main
git pull
git tag v1.1.0 -m "Release Remote Access Service v1.1.0"
git push origin v1.1.0

Step 3—GitHub Actions creates the prod promotion PR

When the tag is pushed, GitHub Actions automatically:

  1. Verifies the image for 1.1.0 exists in Harbor
  2. Runs the Harbor vulnerability scan
  3. Updates the image tag in k8s/overlays/prod/
  4. Opens a pull request titled: chore: promote remote-access-service v1.1.0 to prod

The pull request includes a deployment summary showing what changed between the current prod version and the new version.

Step 4—Platform Engineer or Administrator approves the PR

The prod promotion PR requires approval from a platform-engineer or administrator role. The approver verifies:

  • The image tag matches the release tag
  • The vulnerability scan passed
  • The staging deployment is healthy

Step 5—Merge the pull request

After approval, merge the pull request. Argo CD detects the manifest change and deploys to prod.

Monitor the prod deployment:

stctl status --env prod --service remote-access-service

Step 6—Verify prod deployment

stctl remote-access probe --env prod

Expected:

✔  Probe session opened and closed successfully
Environment: prod
Broker latency: 19ms

Validation

Promotion is complete when:

Check Command Expected
Correct version running stctl status --env prod --service remote-access-service Image tag matches release tag
Broker active stctl remote-access probe --env prod Probe succeeds

Troubleshooting

GitHub Actions didn't create a prod PR after the tag push**

Check the Actions workflow run in GitHub. Common causes: the image for the tag doesn't exist in Harbor, or the vulnerability scan failed. Rebuild and push the image, then re-push the tag.

Approver cann't find the pull request**

The PR is opened against the prod branch in the same repository. Check the Pull Requests tab filtered by base: prod.

Next steps