Deploy on Demand
Remove the last manual gates and deploy every change that passes the pipeline.
Phase 4: Deliver on Demand
The capability to deploy any change to production at any time, using the delivery strategy that fits your context.
3 minute read
Key question: “Can we deliver any change to production when the business needs it?”
This is the destination: you can deploy any change that passes the pipeline to production whenever you choose. Some teams will auto-deploy every commit (continuous deployment). Others will deploy on demand when the business is ready. Both are valid - the capability is what matters, not the trigger.
What You’ll Do
- Deploy on demand - Remove the last manual gates so any green build can reach production
- Use progressive rollout - Canary, blue-green, and percentage-based deployments
- Explore agentic CD - AI-assisted continuous delivery patterns
- Learn from experience reports - How other teams made the journey
Continuous Delivery vs. Continuous Deployment
These terms are often confused. The distinction matters for this phase:
- Continuous delivery means every commit that passes the pipeline could be deployed to production at any time. The capability exists. A human or business process decides when.
- Continuous deployment means every commit that passes the pipeline is deployed to production automatically. No human decision is involved.
Continuous delivery is the goal of this migration guide. Continuous deployment is one delivery strategy that works well for certain contexts - SaaS products, internal tools, services behind feature flags. It is not a higher level of maturity. A team that deploys on demand with a one-click deploy is just as capable as a team that auto-deploys every commit.
Why This Phase Matters
When your foundations are solid, your pipeline is reliable, and your batch sizes are small, deploying any change becomes low-risk. The remaining barriers are organizational, not technical: approval processes, change windows, release coordination. This phase addresses those barriers so the team has the option to deploy whenever the business needs it.
Signs You’ve Arrived
- Any commit that passes the pipeline can reach production within minutes
- The team deploys frequently (daily or more) with no drama
- Mean time to recovery is measured in minutes
- The team has confidence that any deployment can be safely rolled back
- New team members can deploy on their first day
- The deployment strategy (on-demand or automatic) is a team choice, not a constraint
Related Content
- Phase 3: Optimize - the previous phase that establishes small batches, feature flags, and flow improvements
- Fear of Deploying - a deployment symptom that this phase eliminates by making deployment routine and low-risk
- Infrequent Releases - a symptom directly addressed by delivering on demand
- DORA Capabilities - the research-backed capabilities that underpin delivery performance
- Deployment Frequency - the primary metric that reflects delivery-on-demand capability
- Mean Time to Repair - the recovery metric that progressive rollout and automated rollback improve
Progressive Rollout
Use canary, blue-green, and percentage-based deployments to reduce deployment risk.
Agentic CD
Extend continuous deployment with constraints and practices for AI agent-generated changes.
Experience Reports
Real-world stories from teams that have made the journey to continuous deployment.