Phase 10 - Deployment & Monitoring

Overview

• Tier: Polish (Phase 10 of 12)
• Duration: 1 day
• Dependencies: Phase 0-9 completed
• Deliverables: Live site, CI/CD pipeline, monitoring setup, backup strategy

Entry Criteria

• Performance optimization complete
• All tests passing
• Content finalized
• Domain and hosting ready

Implementation Steps

Step	Task	Scope	Notes
10.01	Choose hosting platform	Essential	GitHub Pages ships preconfigured; Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel are alternatives
10.02	Configure build settings	Essential	Environment variables
10.03	Set up CI/CD pipeline	Essential	Auto-deploy on push
10.04	Configure custom domain	Essential	DNS settings
10.05	SSL certificate setup	Essential	Auto-provisioned
10.06	Deploy to staging	Essential	Preview environment (on GitHub Pages, PR checks — build, tests, Lighthouse — stand in for staging)
10.07	Production deployment	Essential	Go live
10.08	Set up monitoring	Essential	Uptime, basic metrics
10.09	Configure backups	Essential	Code and content
10.10	Error tracking	Advanced	Sentry or similar
10.11	Analytics setup	Recommended	Privacy-focused
10.12	Performance monitoring	Advanced	RUM, dashboards

Note: The starter ships a GitHub Pages workflow out of the box (.github/workflows/deploy.yml); Cloudflare Pages is an alternative deployment path. If you deploy to Cloudflare Pages from CI, use cloudflare/wrangler-action@v3 with command: pages deploy dist --project-name=<name> — the older cloudflare/pages-action@v1 is deprecated. Static deploys to Cloudflare Pages need no wrangler.toml.

Security Checklist

# Production Security Checklist

## Environment
- [ ] All sensitive keys in environment variables
- [ ] Different keys for staging/production
- [ ] No secrets in code repository
- [ ] Environment variables documented

## Headers
- [ ] Security headers configured
- [ ] CSP policy implemented
- [ ] HSTS enabled
- [ ] X-Frame-Options set

## SSL/TLS
- [ ] SSL certificate active
- [ ] Auto-renewal configured
- [ ] HTTP redirects to HTTPS
- [ ] HSTS preload submitted

## Access Control
- [ ] Admin routes protected
- [ ] API rate limiting enabled
- [ ] CORS properly configured
- [ ] Authentication implemented

## Monitoring
- [ ] Error tracking active
- [ ] Security alerts configured
- [ ] Uptime monitoring enabled
- [ ] Performance tracking live

## Backups
- [ ] Automated backups running
- [ ] Backup restoration tested
- [ ] Off-site backup storage
- [ ] Backup encryption enabled

Common Pitfalls

1. Missing Environment Variables: Forgetting to set production variables

   • Solution: Validate required variables on build

2. Cache Issues: Old content served after updates

   • Solution: Implement cache busting strategy

3. SSL Problems: Certificate errors or mixed content

   • Solution: Force HTTPS, update all URLs

4. Missing Redirects: Old URLs returning 404

   • Solution: Set up redirect rules on a header-capable host (Cloudflare Pages, Netlify); GitHub Pages has no redirects file, so ship meta-refresh pages instead

5. Monitoring Blind Spots: Not tracking critical metrics

   • Solution: Comprehensive monitoring setup

Exit Criteria

Essential (all projects)

• Site deployed to production
• Custom domain configured (SITE_URL set; see .github/workflows/deploy.yml)
• SSL certificate active
• CI/CD pipeline functional (ci.yml, lighthouse.yml, deploy.yml green)
• Preview deployments or PR checks working
• Uptime monitoring active
• Backups automated
• Security headers verified (public/_headers — honoured by Cloudflare Pages/Netlify, a no-op on GitHub Pages)
• Documentation updated

Recommended (most projects)

• Analytics configured (privacy-focused; opt-in, not shipped)

Advanced (portfolio/enterprise)

• Error tracking enabled (Sentry or equivalent)
• Performance monitoring live (RUM dashboards)
• Alerting configured for error rate thresholds

Rollback Strategy

If deployment issues occur:

1. Failed Deployment:

   • Use previous successful build
   • Check build logs for errors
   • Verify environment variables

2. Production Issues:

   • Immediate rollback available
   • Use preview deployments for testing
   • Monitor error rates

3. Performance Degradation:

   • Check CDN configuration
   • Verify caching headers
   • Review recent changes

AI Assistant Notes

Key Files to Reference

• .github/workflows/deploy.yml - Shipped GitHub Pages deploy (resolves SITE_URL / DEPLOY_TARGET)
• .github/workflows/ci.yml, lighthouse.yml - Quality and Lighthouse gates
• .env.example - Environment variable setup (pnpm run env:validate runs before every build)
• public/_headers - Security and caching headers
• astro.config.mjs - site / base derived from SITE_URL and DEPLOY_TARGET

Common Prompts for This Phase

• “Point the GitHub Pages deploy at a custom domain”
• “Set up Cloudflare Pages deployment as an alternative”
• “Configure GitHub Actions for CI/CD”
• “Implement error tracking with Sentry”
• “Create automated backup strategy”

Context Requirements

• Hosting platform choice
• Domain name
• Analytics preferences
• Monitoring requirements