Pact Foundation

Hey,

This page <https://docs.pact.io/pact_broker/recording_deployments_and_releases#application-instances|https://docs.pact.io/pact_broker/recording_deployments_and_releases#application-instances> says that application instances shouldn't be used for blue/green or other long running deployments (eg canary). 

But it doesn't say what should be used instead...

We're currently running with two consumers - Foo.Stable and Foo.Canary - but not sure if this is advisable or not

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For blue/green standard `record-deployment` is :white_check_mark:

(sorry, I saw your other post earlier today but just didn’t get a chance to read the specific question and respond)

So *TL;DR:* With blue/green it's normal to have two consumers e.g `MyConsumer-Blue` &amp; `MyConsumer-Green` ?

Ah! No, same consumer just a different version

But if we record a deployment to the environment, that removes the previously deployed version from the environment

Correct. Given the advice on the above page, you should only do that once the cutover is in place though. 1-6 hours is an awfully long time though.

&gt; 1-6 hours is an awfully long time though
It's enough time to see sufficent real-world usage and compare it to "stable" in parallel to be confident we haven't regressed :slightly_smiling_face:

&gt; We’re currently running with two consumers - Foo.Stable and Foo.Canary - but not sure if this is advisable or not
How does the consumer know it’s hitting the stable or canary version of the provider? Usually, this is transparent to consumers

Sorry - we're not canary releasing our provider. We're canary releasing the _consumer_

I think in your case you could consider it a “long-running” deployment. But having two applications is probably not the end of the world either

Right - in which case, the feature-request still stands :wink: