Hotfix

Definitions

Hotfix is an urgent software patch deployed directly to production to address a critical bug, security vulnerability, or outage without going through the full release cycle. Unlike regular releases that follow a planned schedule with thorough testing and staged rollouts, hotfixes are applied under time pressure when the cost of waiting exceeds the risk of abbreviated testing. Common triggers include security exploits being actively attacked, revenue-impacting bugs in production, data corruption issues, and service outages. In Git workflows, hotfixes typically branch directly from the production branch (main or release), include only the minimal change needed to resolve the issue, and are merged back into both production and development branches. The Gitflow workflow formalizes this with a dedicated hotfix branch pattern. Good hotfix practices include having a streamlined but not eliminated review process, automated smoke tests, rollback plans, and a post-incident process that creates follow-up tasks for proper testing, documentation, and root cause analysis.
In plain English: An emergency fix pushed to a live system to fix a critical problem immediately — like patching a leak while the ship is still sailing.