Ask Your Dev Team how they handle hot-fixes

In the last issue, we covered how to ask your developer about maintenance plans. But what happens when something breaks right now?

What’s a critical issue?

Before we talk about hot-fixes, let’s define what qualifies as critical:

Security vulnerabilities: An exploit that puts user data or system integrity at risk
System crashes: Your application is completely down and users can’t access it
Data corruption: Data is being lost, duplicated, or incorrectly modified
Compliance violations: Your software is violating regulatory requirements
Network or infrastructure failures: The underlying systems your app depends on are failing

Severity levels

Most development teams classify issues into four severity levels:

Trivial: Cosmetic issues, minor UI glitches, or typos. Low priority, can wait for the next scheduled release.
Minor: Small bugs that have workarounds. They affect the user experience but don’t block core functionality.
Major: Significant bugs that impact core features. No easy workaround. These should be addressed in the current sprint or cycle.
Critical: System-breaking issues. The application is unusable, data is at risk, or security is compromised. These need immediate attention.

Ask your developer how they classify issues and make sure you agree on what “critical” means for your business.

What is a hot-fix?

A hot-fix is a small, targeted update applied directly to live software, typically bypassing the normal testing and validation cycle. It’s the emergency surgery of software development.

Hot-fixes exist because sometimes you can’t wait for the next release. A security vulnerability, a payment processing bug, or a system crash needs to be fixed now.

Two risks to discuss

1. Downtime and service disruption

Even a fix can cause disruption. Ask your developer:

How do they deploy hot-fixes with minimal downtime?
Do they have a process for notifying users of maintenance windows?
Was zero-downtime deployment considered during the design stage?

The best time to plan for emergency deployments is before you need one.

2. Making things worse

A hot-fix, by definition, skips some of the normal quality gates. That means there’s a real risk the fix introduces new problems.

Ask your developer:

Do they have rollback capability? Can they quickly revert to the previous version if the hot-fix causes issues?
What’s their testing process for hot-fixes? Even in an emergency, what’s the minimum validation they perform?
Who approves a hot-fix? Is there a decision-maker who signs off, or can any developer push to production?

What to expect

A good developer should be able to clearly explain:

Their severity classification system
Their process for deploying emergency fixes
Their rollback strategy
Their communication plan (how and when they’ll notify you)

If they can’t answer these questions, that’s a red flag, not because emergencies are common, but because the ability to handle them well says everything about a team’s maturity.

I hope this issue helps you prepare for the inevitable. Go build something and expect better from your developer.