Core Concepts

This topic provides an overview of the core concepts and processes in Digital.ai Release, including releases, phases, tasks, release flow, release owners, templates, and teams. It explains how Digital.ai Release helps plan, track, and execute releases, serving as a central source of truth for all involved stakeholders.

Digital.ai Releases are at the heart of Digital.ai Release. A release represents a number of activities in a certain time period, with people working on them. Digital.ai Release allows you to plan, track, and execute releases automatically. It acts as a single source of truth for everyone who is involved in making the release a success.

A release is broken down into phases, which represent logical stages in the process that must occur in order. For instance, a release may include Development, QA, and Deployment phases. In Digital.ai Release, a phase comprises tasks, which are the activities that must be completed to fulfill the release.

Tasks refer to activities in a release, and Digital.ai Release defines everything that needs to be done as a task. Tasks can be manual, requiring human intervention, or automated, which can be performed by the Release flow engine without supervision.

When a release begins, Release initiates the release flow or workflow. Release identifies the current task that needs attention and then performs it automatically (if it's automated) or sends a notification to the appropriate person (if it's a manual task).

Each release has a release owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the release performs correctly. The release owner will receive notifications if something goes wrong, such as if an automated task produces an error, or if someone working on a task indicates they need help.

A release template is a blueprint for a release. You can use it to create multiple releases with the same flow. While templates are very similar to releases, some features differ because templates are never executed directly. For example, templates don't include start or end dates; most tasks are assigned to teams instead of individuals; and variables are used as placeholders for information that changes from release to release, such as an application's version number.

Each release or release template defines a set of teams, which are logical groups of people who perform specific roles. For instance, you can define a Development team, a QA team, an OPS team, and a Release Management team for a release.