Fix-only deploy exclusion: a worked example
Forward-fixes should not pad the success column. Here is how the exclusion changes the math.
OW
Oliver Wakefield-Smith
Founder, Digital Signet. Built siemcost / monitoringcost / itbudgetcalculator.
Updated 21 Jun 2026
Direct answer
A fix-only or forward-fix deploy exists solely to patch the previous failed deploy. DORA guidance is to exclude it from total_deploys so a failure does not generate two successful counts when you include the fix as a normal deploy Atlassian DORA2024.
Without the exclusion
Imagine 104 deploys over a 30-day window with 23 failures. 12 of the 104 deploys are forward-fixes for those 23 failures. Treating the fixes as ordinary deploys produces CFR = 23 / 104 = 22.1%.
23
Failed
104
Total deploys
No fix-only exclusion
With the exclusion
Drop the 12 fix-only deploys from the denominator. CFR = 23 / 92 = 25.0%. The exclusion makes the metric stricter, not laxer; this is the point.
23
Failed
92
Total deploys
Fix-only excluded
How to tag deploys as fix-only
The simplest convention is a commit-message prefix (e.g. fix-only:) recognised by the CI pipeline. Alternatives: a manual CI label, a Linear / Jira fix-version tag, a deploy-time form field. The exact tag matters less than its consistency.
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