PATTERN Cited by 1 source

Promotion is merge not redeploy

Definition

The promotion-is-merge pattern replaces environment promotion (shipping schema changes from staging to production) with a git merge whose downstream effect is a database branch promotion. The migration applies once at each tier, validated at the prior tier first — identical to how code is validated in earlier pipeline stages.

This eliminates the "redeploy against a different target" model where migrations must be re-run against an independent database instance with potentially different state, reducing drift risk and failure-mode surface area.

Mechanics

1. Developer merges feature branch into staging tier branch
2. Migration applies against staging's Lakebase branch (validated)
3. Staging-to-production promotion is a separate merge with separate reviewers
4. The same migration artifact applies — no re-authoring for each environment
5. Rollback is repointing to pre-promotion snapshot branch

Seen in

• systems/lakebase — branch promotion as the deployment primitive (Source: sources/2026-06-12-databricks-enabling-evolutionary-database-development-database-branchin-part3)