DevOps Dictionary

Spinnaker is an open-source continuous delivery platform that automates how application changes are deployed across one or more cloud environments. It addresses the risk and complexity of releasing frequently by providing deployment pipelines that coordinate steps like baking machine images, promoting versions between environments, and running safe rollout strategies such as canary and blue/green deployments (gradually shifting traffic to reduce blast radius). Spinnaker integrates with common CI systems and cloud providers, then enforces consistent, repeatable releases through declarative pipelines and automated checks.

With Spinnaker, teams can ship changes faster with fewer manual steps and more predictable rollbacks; without it, deployments often rely on ad hoc scripts and human coordination, which increases delays and the chance of inconsistent configurations or production incidents. This gap exists because automated orchestration makes deployment state and approvals explicit, rather than being implied in tribal knowledge and runbooks.