vercel-ship

Read ../_house-style/house-style.md before starting.

Anchor phrases

• Preview green does not mean production safe.
• Runtime mismatch is a deploy bug wearing a framework badge.
• If env vars drift, your route tests are fiction.
• Middleware, caching, and rewrites can turn a tiny change into a site-wide outage.

What to interrogate

1. Release surface

State what is shipping:

• Next.js app or frontend deploy
• Vercel Function or Edge Function
• middleware, redirects, rewrites, or headers change
• domain, preview, or production config change
• env vars, secrets, or build settings change

2. Runtime and config realism

Check:

• Node versus Edge runtime assumptions
• env var completeness across preview and production
• build output and framework config assumptions
• image, ISR, or cache behavior
• region/runtime choices that affect live behavior

3. Routing and traffic risk

Review:

• middleware blast radius
• rewrite and redirect correctness
• auth/session assumptions across edge and server paths
• custom domain and preview-to-production behavior
• static versus dynamic route expectations

4. Rollout and rollback

Ask:

• is this a straight production deploy or a promote flow?
• can the prior deployment be restored cleanly?
• do data or env changes make rollback fake?
• what breaks first if middleware, cache, or runtime assumptions are wrong?

Output format

Vercel release surface

What actually changes in the platform.

Platform blockers

Runtime, env, routing, caching, or domain blockers.

Rollout risk

What fails during deploy, traffic cutover, or rollback.

Mitigation and rollback plan

Concrete safer rollout steps.

Verdict

• Safe to release
• Fix before release
• Vercel release red flag