It was just another day—coffee in one hand, playing around with production platform—when I noticed something off. A sneaky bug creating havoc in production.
The textbook approach? Reproduce the issue in a test environment, generate test data, verify the fix, deploy it safely, and then test again.
But let’s be real—some days, there’s no time for the perfect process. This was one of those days.
🚨 The Problem? A Bug That Already Existed !
A pagination logic issue meant that after 100 resources, the system incorrectly marked findings as PASSED instead of FAILED. Our beloved feature-x process was throwing out false positives. Not a great look.
The issue was already live in production—meaning users were already dealing with incorrect data. So, the logical question was:
What’s the worst that could happen if I push the fix directly to prod?
⚡ The Dilemma: Do We Test? Or Do We Ship?
Ordinarily, for this case, i would have to generate more than 100 test resources in a sandbox, deploy the fix, validate results, and then push it to prod.
But here’s the kicker: That takes time. Time that we didn’t have. And since production was already in a broken state, my mindset was:
“Let’s just deploy the hotfix and observe.”
And so, we did.
🎯 The Aftermath
With the hotfix live, I sat back, refreshed the platform, and waited.
🚀 Results? The fix worked like a charm. No nasty side effects, no extra fires. Just quick action and a resolved issue.
Would this approach always work? Absolutely not. Deploying directly to production can be risky, and you should never make it a habit. But in the right circumstances—where the issue is already live, and time is critical—it can be the fastest way to restore sanity.
📌 Lessons Learned (For the Brave QA Souls Out There)
✅ Understand the risk – Know what you’re fixing and what the worst-case scenario is.
✅ Assess the impact – If production is already broken, a well-tested hotfix might be the best bet.
✅ Trust your judgment – Sometimes, QA isn’t just about testing; it’s about making decisions.
✅ Logs are your best friend – If you deploy a hotfix, monitor it like a hawk. Observability > Blind Testing
✅ Break the rules… wisely – QA is about balance. Knowing when to break protocol is a skill.
Would you have done the same? (unless you’re a production purist who’s about to yell at me 😆)