How I Automated My Entire Deployment with 47 Lines of YAML

The Setup

Push to main → Tests run → Docker builds → Canary deploys → Health checks pass → Full rollout. All in one GitHub Actions workflow.

Key Decisions

1. Docker Multi-Stage Builds

Build stage: 1.2GB. Final image: 89MB. The trick is separating build dependencies from runtime dependencies.

2. Canary Strategy

• Deploy to 10% of pods
• Monitor error rate for 5 minutes
• If error rate > 1%, automatic rollback
• If healthy, promote to 100%

3. Secret Management

No secrets in YAML. Everything comes from Vault via CSI driver. Secrets rotate automatically every 24 hours.

The Result

Deploy frequency went from weekly to 12 times per day. Rollback time: 30 seconds. Zero manual steps.

The best infrastructure is the one you forget exists.