Canary Launches: How and Why to Canary Release

A canary launch is a method used by agile development organizations to slowly roll out new features to a small number of users, allowing them to assess the reaction and impact on the overall system. This approach helps in identifying potential issues early on and provides an opportunity for quick recovery if needed. Canary launches are different from internal betas, user testing, QA or performance testing as they involve real users in a production environment. Companies like Google use canary launches to release new features to early adopters. While traditional pre-launch activities improve product quality, they lack the component of testing features in actual usage. LaunchDarkly offers "canaries as a service" platform for feature rollout and reaction monitoring. Canary launches provide risk mitigation by allowing issues to be identified and fixed in a controlled environment before affecting all users.