5 exercises on the verbs and phrases engineers use to ship code — from gradual rollouts to instant cutovers and emergency hotfixes.
Key verb–noun pairs in this set
roll out a feature — release progressively (noun: rollout)
blue-green = instant switch; canary = small sample first
promote to production — move a tested build up the chain
cut over — switch fully from old system to new
deploy a hotfix + feature flag — urgent fix you can toggle off
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A release manager announces: "We’re going to ___ the new dashboard to 5% of users first, then gradually increase the percentage." Which verb phrase is the natural collocation for a gradual, percentage-based release?
Roll out is the standard term for releasing a feature progressively, often to an increasing share of users. It captures the controlled, staged nature of a modern release. Collocations: roll out a feature, roll out to 5% of traffic, a phased rollout, a gradual rollout. The noun form is rollout (one word).
push out exists (push out an update) but implies a single shove, not a graded percentage.
spread out and send out are not idiomatic for releases.
Remember the opposite: if a rollout goes wrong, you roll back the release.
2 / 5
Two release strategies are being compared. Which sentence correctly describes a blue-green deployment?
Blue-green deployment keeps two identical production environments (“blue” = live, “green” = idle). You deploy the new version to the idle one, test it, then flip the router so all traffic moves at once. Rollback is instant: flip back.
Option A describes a canary deployment — a small slice of real traffic tests the new version first.
Option C is a phased / staged rollout.
Option D is a rolling deployment (rolling update).
Know the contrast: blue-green = instant all-or-nothing switch; canary = small sample first; rolling = node by node.
3 / 5
A team lead writes: "The build passed staging. Let’s ___ production this afternoon." Which collocation means moving a tested build forward to the live environment?
Promote to production is the idiomatic phrase for moving an artifact or build from a lower environment to a higher one. The same artifact is “promoted” up the chain: promote to staging, promote to production, promote the artifact, promote a release candidate. The metaphor is a job promotion — the build is unchanged but rises in status.
upgrade to refers to versions (upgrade to v2), not environment movement.
advance into and forward to are not used for deployments.
Related: cut a release, ship to production, go live.
4 / 5
During a migration, the ops engineer says: "Once DNS propagates, we’ll ___ from the old API to the new one in a single switch." Which two-word verb means switching fully from old to new?
Cut over means to switch operations from an old system to a new one, typically in one decisive step. The noun is cutover (the cutover window, the cutover plan). Usage: cut over to the new database, schedule the cutover for 2am, a clean cutover with no downtime.
switch off just means power down, with no “to the new system” sense.
turn over and move out are not used for migrations.
Cut over pairs naturally with blue-green and migration work, where you also flip traffic and drain the old environment.
5 / 5
There’s a critical bug in production. The on-call engineer needs to release a small, urgent fix outside the normal release cycle. Which sentence uses the most natural collocations?
Deploy a hotfix = release an urgent, targeted fix straight to production, outside the regular release train. A feature flag (or toggle) lets you turn functionality on or off at runtime without redeploying — so you can kill the flag instantly if the fix misbehaves. These pair perfectly for incident response.
Option A (ship to staging & wait) is the opposite of urgent.
Option C mixes unrelated actions — you would never tear down production to fix a bug.
Option D combines a cutover and metric scraping, which don’t fit a hotfix.
Learn the set: deploy a hotfix, patch production, toggle a flag, ship to staging, cut a release.