DEFCON Process

At VTEX, teams have autonomy in the execution of their deployments into production. Teams also have different deployment cadences. Some may deploy many times a day, while others may deploy less frequently. In order to provide stability to the whole VTEX platform, there are some processes and tools implemented to support the engineering team. One of those being the DEFCON process.

The DEFCON process comprises a set of rules and measures that impacts deployment routines at VTEX. Those are widely communicated across the whole engineering team.

DEFCON is short for defense readiness condition. The process name is based on the US military DEFCON alert state.

The DEFCON stages range from 1 to 5, where DEFCON 5 is the least severe. VTEX goes automatically to DEFCON 1 during a platform outage.

DEFCON 5

It is just a typical day, and teams must announce their changes. In case of an increased number of errors, teams must roll back changes.

DEFCON 3 and 4

When triggered, teams are in a more vigilant state. More control is needed, so engineers usually cannot deploy solo or in parallel in those stages.

DEFCON 2

Strategic conditions trigger DEFCON 2, where, basically, teams are not allowed to deploy unless they get authorization from leadership.

DEFCON 1

It is a crisis condition, where only maneuvers to end it may be executed during this stage.

Those are just brief descriptions of the stages, of course. Each has specific conditions to trigger their beginning and end, and specific measures teams must follow during it.

But I think the most important aspect of such a process is to have a clear communication process to give teams clarity over the situation. This way, empowered and autonomous teams can effectively help to solve the crisis and to stabilize the platform.