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Infrastructure · 5 min
Making validator upgrades boring
Upgrades are where uptime is won or lost. A repeatable process turns a risky night into a routine merge.
Hard forks and client releases are predictable events, yet they cause a large share of missed blocks and outages. The difference between a calm upgrade and a scramble is preparation.
Declare everything
Client versions, flags and configuration live in Git. An upgrade is a reviewed pull request, not a sequence of commands typed under pressure.
Canary, then roll
We upgrade a small slice of the fleet first, watch the signals that matter and only then roll forward, with a tested path back.
Rehearse the rollback
A rollback you have never run is a hope, not a plan. We practise it on testnets until it is muscle memory.