Rollback Drill Log

One of the most overlooked parts of a release workflow is the rollback drill. Teams usually focus on how to ship forward, but real pressure starts when you need to step back within minutes.

Drill Goals

• Finish the rollback within 10 minutes
• Keep database schema compatibility intact
• Verify that static asset cache does not mix old pages with new APIs

Steps in This Drill

1. Send 10% of traffic through the canary path
2. Watch error rate and key page metrics
3. Trigger a controlled failure condition
4. Execute the rollback script
5. Verify monitoring, logs, and page cache

Result

• Rollback duration: 7m 40s
• Database: no rollback required
• Cache: recovered after clearing two critical entry points manually

deployctl rollback --env production --version previous

Conclusion

The value of a drill is not the command itself. It is whether the team knows who sends the command, who validates recovery, and who communicates outward. A rollback plan is not finished just because it exists in a document. It needs at least one real run.