DevOps
debt(d7/e7/b7/t7)
Closest to 'only careful code review or runtime testing' (d7). DevOps adoption problems manifest as organizational symptoms: manual deployments via FTP/SSH, no CI pipeline, infrastructure configured by hand, ops and dev silos. While tools like GitHub Actions, Terraform, Ansible, Docker exist in the ecosystem, no tool can automatically detect 'we're doing DevOps wrong' — it requires observing team dynamics, deployment frequency, and incident response patterns through careful review of processes.
Closest to 'cross-cutting refactor across the codebase' (e7). The quick_fix suggests starting with CI tests, automated deployment, and structured logging as foundations, but fully addressing DevOps debt requires changing team structures, communication patterns, on-call rotations, and tooling across the entire organization. This is not a code fix but an organizational transformation spanning multiple teams and systems.
Closest to 'strong gravitational pull' (b7). DevOps practices (or lack thereof) shape every change: how code gets reviewed, tested, deployed, monitored, and fixed. Applies to both web and CLI contexts per the term metadata. Poor DevOps culture creates persistent friction — every deployment, every incident, every handoff between teams is affected. It's not quite b9 (rewrite-or-live-with-it) since incremental adoption is possible, but it strongly shapes daily work.
Closest to 'serious trap' (t7). The misconception field explicitly states the trap: DevOps is misunderstood as 'developers also handle operations tasks' or a job title/team name, when it's actually a cultural shift emphasizing shared ownership, automation, and feedback loops. This contradicts how similar organizational concepts work (you can hire a 'Security Team' but you can't hire a 'DevOps Team' and call it done) — the obvious interpretation is wrong.
Also Known As
TL;DR
Explanation
DevOps breaks down silos between development (building features) and operations (running infrastructure), promoting shared ownership of the full software lifecycle. Key practices include CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible), containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes), monitoring and observability, and blameless post-mortems. For PHP developers, DevOps means owning deployments, writing meaningful health checks and metrics, and participating in on-call rotations. The DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, time to restore) measure DevOps effectiveness.
Common Misconception
Why It Matters
Common Mistakes
- Treating DevOps as a job title or team name rather than a cultural practice — it requires collaboration across all roles.
- Automating deployment without improving feedback loops — automation without observability is blind.
- Focusing on tools (Docker, Kubernetes) before addressing team process and communication.
- Measuring DevOps success by deployment frequency alone — reliability and recovery time matter equally.
Code Examples
// DevOps anti-pattern — dev throws over the wall:
// Developer: 'Works on my machine, ops problem now'
// Operations: 'Dev broke prod again'
// No shared ownership, no blameless postmortems
// No developer access to production metrics
// Result: slow deploys, slow incident response, low morale# DevOps practices for PHP teams
# Infrastructure as Code
# terraform/
# main.tf — EC2, RDS, ElastiCache
# variables.tf
# Dockerised PHP app:
FROM php:8.3-fpm-alpine
RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql opcache
COPY --from=composer /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer
WORKDIR /var/www/app
COPY . .
RUN composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
# docker-compose.yml (local dev):
services:
php:
build: .
volumes: [.:/var/www/app]
nginx:
image: nginx:alpine
mysql:
image: mysql:8.0
environment: {MYSQL_DATABASE: app, MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret}
redis:
image: redis:alpine
# Monitoring: error rates, response times, queue depth
# SLO: 99.5% requests < 500ms, < 0.1% error rate