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# Prepare Auto DevOps for deployment **(FREE)**
If you enable Auto DevOps without setting the base domain and deployment
strategy, GitLab can't deploy your application directly. Therefore, we
recommend that you prepare them before enabling Auto DevOps.
## Deployment strategy
> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/38542) in GitLab 11.0.
When using Auto DevOps to deploy your applications, choose the
| **Continuous deployment to production** | Enables [Auto Deploy](stages.md#auto-deploy) with the default branch continuously deployed to production. | Continuous deployment to production.|
| **Continuous deployment to production using timed incremental rollout** | Sets the [`INCREMENTAL_ROLLOUT_MODE`](customize.md#timed-incremental-rollout-to-production) variable to `timed`. | Continuously deploy to production with a 5 minutes delay between rollouts. |
| **Automatic deployment to staging, manual deployment to production** | Sets [`STAGING_ENABLED`](customize.md#deploy-policy-for-staging-and-production-environments) to `1` and [`INCREMENTAL_ROLLOUT_MODE`](customize.md#incremental-rollout-to-production) to `manual`. | The default branch is continuously deployed to staging and continuously delivered to production. |
You can choose the deployment method when enabling Auto DevOps or later:
1. In GitLab, go to your project's **Settings > CI/CD > Auto DevOps**.
1. Choose the deployment strategy.
1. Select **Save changes**.
NOTE:
Use the [blue-green deployment](../../ci/environments/incremental_rollouts.md#blue-green-deployment) technique
to minimize downtime and risk.
## Auto DevOps base domain
The Auto DevOps base domain is required to use
[Auto Review Apps](stages.md#auto-review-apps), [Auto Deploy](stages.md#auto-deploy), and
[Auto Monitoring](stages.md#auto-monitoring).
To define the base domain, either:
- In the project, group, or instance level: go to your cluster settings and add it there.
- In the project or group level: add it as an environment variable: `KUBE_INGRESS_BASE_DOMAIN`.