A deployment succeeded. Then production started throwing errors. That is why I don't treat a green CI/CD pipeline as proof that a release is healthy. After deployment, check: Error rates compared with the pre-deployment baseline p95 latency for critical endpoints Failed requests and dependency timeouts Pod restarts and readiness failures Whether users can complete the critical workflow If something breaks, you want enough evidence to decide whether to roll back or investigate further. What's the first signal that tells you a deployment has gone wrong?

A Kubernetes deployment can succeed while your application is still broken. kubectl rollout status tells you whether the rollout completed. It doesn't prove your users can successfully use the application. After a deployment, check: Are requests succeeding? Has p95 latency changed? Are error rates increasing? Are pods restarting or failing readiness checks? Are downstream dependencies healthy? A successful rollout is one checkpoint, not the finish line. What's your first check after a Kubernetes deployment goes green?