Configuring deployments

Set up deployments by creating an application and selecting your method of deployment.

About deployments

Deployments are used as the data source of Deployments Insights, which provides visibility into the frequency and quality of deployments:

  • Deployment frequency & total count of deployments
  • Change failure rate (CFR), or how often you deploy defects into production
  • Mean time to recovery (MTTR), the average time it takes to address defects

Setting up deployments

  1. Navigate to Settings / Deployments
  2. Create a new application to configure the deployments for
  3. Configure your deployment data source (see below for source specific instructions)

Deployment data sources

You can use a variety of data sources for getting deployments to show on Swarmia:

  • Merged pull requests — use merges into a specific branch as the proxy for deployments
  • GitHub checks — automatically create deployments from your CI/CD pipeline based on repository, check, and branch configurations
  • GitHub Deployments — automatically create deployments based on GitHub Deployments
  • Deployments API — send deployment information directly, supports multiple environments

Comparison of data sources

  Merged pull requests GitHub checks

GitHub Deployments

Deployments API
DORA metrics        
Deployment Frequency
Change Lead Time
Change Failure Rate
Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
         
Change failure automation Reverts Reverts, Rollbacks Reverts, Rollbacks Reverts, Rollbacks, API
Multiple environments

Which data source should I use?

Most CI/CD tools have a GitHub integration that can report your deployment job status back to GitHub. If your deployment status is visible in GitHub as a check, we recommend using GitHub checks.

This is the fastest way to get started with Deployment insights and allows Swarmia to backfill historical data automatically. You can always update your application from GitHub checks to other deployment sources without losing historical deployment data.

Screenshot of GitHub checks list with a successful "Deploy Production" check.
GitHub checks list with a successful "Deploy Production" check.

We recommend using the Deployments API in the cases where:

  • You deploy manually.
  • Your CI/CD pipeline does not report deployments back to GitHub.
  • You need multiple environments.
  • You want to automate additional change failures (in addition to reverts and rollbacks).