Hotfixes and Future Maturity

Emergency hotfix

A hotfix is reserved for urgent production impact, severe security exposure, or a release-blocking issue where the normal train is too slow. It is not a shortcut for poor planning.

The release owner declares the hotfix, identifies the production commit, and creates hotfix/<issue> from the supported production line. The change receives focused CI, review, targeted regression, and explicit approval. After production, the exact fix is forward-merged to active release and develop branches.

Target maturity model

flowchart LR
  Release[Release branch] --> Fix[Fix branch]
  Fix --> Preview[Ephemeral preview environment]
  Preview --> PR[PR to release]
  PR --> Test[Test environment]
  PR --> Auto[Automated forward merge]
  Auto --> Develop[Develop]

Prerequisites include namespace-per-preview or composition-based previews, safe test data, branch-image retention, environment cleanup, cost controls, and reliable multi-service selection. Until those exist, the current develop-freeze process remains authoritative.