From 3b321254af692489c064d6617dbac4b76775ad66 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: eileen-nava <80347702+eileen-nava@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2024 14:54:33 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] document risks of no-migration recycles (#621)

---
 _articles/appdev-deploy.md | 9 ++++++++-
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/_articles/appdev-deploy.md b/_articles/appdev-deploy.md
index 18d25a81..c6e06e90 100644
--- a/_articles/appdev-deploy.md
+++ b/_articles/appdev-deploy.md
@@ -336,7 +336,7 @@ new configurations (config from S3).
     ```
 
 ### No-Migration Recycle
-When responding to a production incident with a config change, or otherwise in a hurry, you might want to recycle without waiting for a migration instance. For environments other than prod, note that if a migration has been introduced on `main`, new instances will fail to start until migrations are run.
+When responding to a production incident with a config change, or otherwise in a hurry, you might want to recycle without waiting for a migration instance.
 1. Recycle the boxes without a migration instance
 ```bash
 aws-vault exec prod-power -- ./bin/asg-recycle prod idp --skip-migration
@@ -346,3 +346,10 @@ aws-vault exec prod-power -- ./bin/asg-recycle prod idp --skip-migration
 ```bash
 aws-vault exec prod-power -- ./bin/scale-remove-old-instances prod ALL
 ```
+
+#### Risks with No-Migrations Recycle
+For environments other than prod, note that if a migration has been introduced on `main`, new instances will fail to start until migrations are run.
+
+Additionally, migration instances are responsible for compiling assets.  If assets have changed since the last migration, we recommend against running a no-migration recycle.  Otherwise, the new servers will look for fingerprinted asset files that don't exist, because the migration instances never created them.
+
+To tell if assets have changed since the last migration, inspect the [Environments status page](https://dashboard.int.identitysandbox.gov/env).  Click "pending changes" and determine if any files changed in `app/assets/stylesheets` or `app/javascript`.
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