What Is a Progressive Rollout?
A progressive rollout deploys a change to a small fraction of traffic or users first, watches its health, and then expands exposure in increments until it reaches everyone. At each stage, failing metrics can halt or reverse the rollout. It is the operational shape behind canary releases and the broader practice of progressive delivery.
Why it matters
Releasing to everyone at once makes every bad change a full-blown incident. A progressive rollout limits blast radius at each step and uses real metrics to decide whether to widen or roll back, so most users never see a regression. It relies on traffic shifting and, often, automated canary analysis.
Related concepts
- Widens exposure in monitored stages
- Implemented via traffic shifting and toggles
- Canary analysis can gate each step
Related guides
What Is Progressive Delivery?Progressive delivery rolls out a change gradually to expanding audiences with automated checks, so issues sur…
What Is Traffic Shifting?Traffic shifting gradually moves a portion of live requests from an old version to a new one, enabling canary…
What Is Canary Analysis?Canary analysis compares a new release serving a small slice of traffic against the stable version to decide…