Rollout and Kill Switches: Controlled Exposure

How to put a new agent version in front of real users without betting the business on it — the shadow → canary → flag → full ladder, the four canary metrics that actually catch agent failures, and kill switches at a granularity you can afford to pull.

Lessons

  1. The rollout ladder
  2. Shadow mode for agents
  3. Canary metrics and auto-halt
  4. Kill switches: granularity is the design
  5. Degraded modes, drills, and the promotion contract