Deliver Phase Documentation
What Happens in This Phase
The Deliver phase moves release artifacts to target environments through deployment pipelines. Documentation covers deployment procedures, environment configurations, and rollback strategies. AI generates documentation from infrastructure-as-code and deployment automation, with humans validating deployment strategies and recovery procedures.
Where AI Helps
- Generating deployment procedures from CI/CD pipeline definitions
- Documenting environment configurations from IaC (Terraform, Ansible, etc.)
- Creating rollback and recovery procedures from deployment scripts
- Producing deployment verification checklists from acceptance criteria
- Maintaining infrastructure documentation synchronized with actual configs
Example: Deployment Procedure
This example demonstrates GenAI Completion—AI generates deployment documentation directly from infrastructure-as-code and pipeline definitions, producing deterministic output that requires validation against actual environment constraints.
Context Setup
Before prompting, the pipeline provided:
- Terraform configurations in /infra directory
- GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/deploy.yml)
- Environment variable definitions per environment
- Health check endpoint specifications
- Kubernetes rollback commands from deployment manifests
Prompt
"Generate deployment documentation for the logistics API service based on the Terraform configs in /infra and the GitHub Actions workflow in .github/workflows/deploy.yml. Include environment-specific configurations, deployment sequence, health check verification, and rollback procedure."
Output
# Logistics API Deployment Procedure
## Prerequisites
- [ ] Release artifact verified in staging
- [ ] Database migrations applied to target environment
- [ ] Feature flags configured for gradual rollout
## Deployment Sequence
1. Deploy to canary instance (10% traffic)
2. Monitor error rates for 15 minutes
3. If healthy, proceed to 50% rollout
4. Full deployment after 30-minute stability window
## Environment Configuration
| Variable | Staging | Production |
|----------|---------|------------|
| REPLICAS | 2 | 6 |
| DB_POOL_SIZE | 10 | 50 |
| LOG_LEVEL | DEBUG | INFO |
## Health Verification
- Endpoint: /health returns 200
- Latency: p99 < 500ms
- Error rate: < 0.1%
## Rollback Procedure
1. Execute: `kubectl rollout undo deployment/logistics-api`
2. Verify previous version health
3. Notify on-call and document incident
What AI-Generated Deliver Documentation Often Misses
- Environment-specific gotchas - Network policies, firewall rules, DNS propagation
- Deployment window constraints - Mission operational tempo, maintenance windows
- Cross-team coordination - Dependencies on platform team or security approval
- Partial failure scenarios - What happens when only some instances update
- Data migration timing - Database changes vs. application deployment sequence
Human reviewers must validate procedures against actual environment constraints.
Governance Checklist
Before accepting AI-assisted Deliver phase documentation:
- [ ] Deployment procedure tested in lower environment
- [ ] Rollback procedure verified to work
- [ ] Environment configurations match infrastructure-as-code
- [ ] Health checks validate actual service readiness
- [ ] Deployment approval workflow documented
Brownfield Additions
For modernization efforts, Deliver phase requires additional focus:
- Cutover strategies - Document switchover from legacy to modern system with rollback points
- Parallel run procedures - Maintain both systems during transition with traffic splitting
- Validation against operational systems - Ensure modernized deployment meets legacy system SLAs