Hotfix

An urgent patch applied directly to the live (production) environment to fix a critical bug, bypassing normal development and review processes when speed is essential.

When payments are broken or data is being corrupted, hotfixes are necessary. Understanding the concept helps you appropriately triage bugs and communicate urgency to your team.

A founder discovers her checkout is returning errors for all users. Her developer deploys a hotfix within 20 minutes, revenue impact limited, no waiting for the next sprint.