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Canary

Canary Releases Explained: Reduce Risk with Gradual Exposure

Route a small percent of traffic to new code paths. Measure, compare, and expand safely with flags.

10 min read
FeatureFuse Team

Canarying limits blast radius and enables fast rollback if metrics regress.

Key Metrics

  • Latency
  • Error rate
  • Conversion

Rollout Playbook

  • Start at 1%
  • Hold until stable
  • Ramp up progressively

Choosing Cohorts

  • Internal users first
  • Low‑risk geos
  • Single region to reduce noise

Observability Hooks

  • Emit exposure events
  • Tag traces with variant
  • Create canary dashboards

Case Study: Canary of Search Indexer

At 1% traffic, error rate rose 1.2pp. The team rolled back instantly using a kill switch, fixed a null edge case, and resumed canary successfully.

Conclusion

Canaries plus flags enable reversible, measured change—your best defense against regressions.

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