Starttolive

Starttolive is a term used in technology and media to describe a practice or philosophy of moving a project, service, or stream from development or pre-launch into a live operational state with minimal downtime. There is no single, universally defined meaning, and the term tends to be used informally across domains, with different organizations giving it context-specific meaning.

In software development, starttolive refers to rapid deployment practices that prioritize speed and real-time feedback. It is associated with continuous integration and delivery, feature flags, and staged rollouts such as canary deployments or blue-green releases. The goal is to minimize time-to-live (time-to-production) while maintaining reliability through monitoring, observability, and rollback capabilities.

In live broadcasting and media, starttolive connotes initiating a live stream or broadcast with limited pre-produced content, emphasizing immediacy and audience engagement. This requires robust production workflows, redundancy, and live-quality controls to manage risk of outages or glitches.

Etymology: a blend of "start" and "live," implying the transition into live operation. Variants include "start-to-live" and domain-specific adaptations.

History and usage: The term appears in industry discussions, blogs, and vendor materials, rather than in formal standards or peer-reviewed literature. As such, its precise interpretation varies by organization and context.

See also: CI/CD, continuous deployment, canary release, feature flag, blue-green deployment, live production, minimum viable product.