How to handle deployments?

[tomdringer]

Howdy folks. In my iOS app I have a list of environments (at the moment just localhost and production). I want to add staging to the environments so Apple can carry out their testing, but once the tests are completed I would have to change the environment to production which I assume would mean it would have to go through testing with Apple again? At the moment with a very low user base I just release the Rails side to production when the app is in review. Obviously, theres a ton of things that could go wrong with that.

I've looked at DNS switching and feature flags, but i'm wondering if theres anything else out there.

What do you do? Whats your workflow to get stuff deployed cleanly?

Thanks.

[joemasilotti]

Apple should be testing in production. My usual flow is to give them a demo account that is seeded with enough data that they can "get" what the app does. That way, they can sign in and see the experience without much effort.