Deployment
Deployment Workflow
The Kinotic deployment pipeline from development to production.
Overview
Kinotic provides a built-in deployment pipeline that takes your application from development through staging to production. The pipeline is designed around feature-based development with isolated environments and security-first build processes.
Pipeline stages: Development -> Staging -> Production
Development
The development stage is optimized for rapid iteration:
- Feature isolation — Each feature branch gets its own development pod, so developers can test changes without affecting others.
- Automatic deployment — Changes deploy as code is saved, providing immediate feedback during development.
- Firecracker VM isolation — Builds execute in isolated Firecracker VMs for both speed and security. Each build runs in its own lightweight VM, preventing untrusted code from affecting the host or other builds.
Staging
The staging environment acts as a gate between development and production. It operates in two phases:
Pre-Merge Checks
Before a feature branch is merged, the staging environment runs:
- Vulnerability scanning — Automated security checks on dependencies and application code.
- Migration execution tests — Migration scripts are executed against a staging data store to verify they run correctly before reaching production.
Post-Merge
After a feature branch is merged:
- Full application build — The complete application is built and deployed to the staging environment.
- Human-in-the-loop approval — A team member reviews the staging deployment and explicitly approves promotion to production. No automatic promotion occurs.
Production
Production deployment happens only after staging approval:
- Full application build — All projects within the application are built and deployed together.
- Deployed after approval — The production environment is updated only when a team member has reviewed and approved the staging deployment.