MSM rollout strategies
Purpose: Operate a blueprint/live-copy estate: rollout cadence, inheritance hygiene and conflict handling.
Who this page is for
| Audience | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|
| All engineers | Working on MSM estates |
| Content ops | Rollout operators |
Rollout models
| Model | Behaviour | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| On-rollout (manual trigger) | Changes push when someone rolls out | Default — controlled, batchable |
| On-modification | Every blueprint save pushes | Small estates, high-trust; noisy at scale |
| Scheduled | Rollout as a batch job (custom/queued) | Large estates wanting a nightly sync rhythm |
Manual rollout wins at scale because it makes propagation an event with an owner — rolled out by whom, when, verified how — rather than ambient magic.
Inheritance hygiene (where estates rot)
- Track the break ratio: what fraction of live-copy components have cancelled inheritance? Rising ratio = the blueprint no longer represents the estate, and rollouts silently skip more and more.
- Local edits need a reason: regional premium (legit — that's the PHI-NZ price) vs "the editor just retyped the title" (re-attach inheritance).
- Structural blueprint changes (component added/moved/deleted) are the risky rollouts — rehearse on a staging live copy first; deleted blueprint components leave orphans per rollout config.
- New live copy = new market: create from blueprint with full rollout config review, ACLs mirrored, dispatcher farm/vhost added (farm design).
Conflict playbook
| Conflict | Resolution |
|---|---|
| Blueprint + local both edited a component | Human decision per component — rollout config decides default winner; audit afterwards |
| Rollout overwrote a wanted local change | Version restore on the live-copy page; then re-break inheritance properly |
| Live copy page deleted locally, still in blueprint | Decide: recreate on next rollout vs exclude — document per page |
Engineering notes
Components must be MSM-safe (no absolute self-site paths, no assumptions about tree position — MSM overview); test new components on a live copy before estate-wide use.