workflow-ship-and-observe — Release, Verify, Observe, Roll Back

Degree of freedom: MIXED. Rollback-vs-hotfix [HIGH freedom]; pin target/SHA, prove revision, observe window [LOW freedom — run exactly].

Shipping is not merging. A release is done only when the intended revision is live on the confirmed target, production smoke checks pass, and a defined monitoring window elapses without crossing rollback thresholds — or a rollback/hotfix has been executed.

Prove the deployed revision, then watch it. A 200 from a URL is not proof that your code is live, and "it deployed" is not proof that it is healthy.

Before any browser action, read protocol-browser-anti-stall.

How to reason