CFR (Change Failure Rate) Metric

Definition

The CFR (Change Failure Rate) Metric measures the number of incidents worked on within a specified time window. These incidents can include:

1. Issues from the project management (PM) provider that meet the filters defined in the settings.
2. Incidents reported via the API.

Why is This Metric Useful?

• This metric highlights the proportion of changes that lead to failures, helping teams assess the stability and reliability of deployments.

How to Use it?

• Use CFR to assess and improve deployment practices and quality assurance.

Examples for Context

• Teams reduced CFR by automating regression testing.

Data Sources

• Deployment logs, incident logs.

Calculation

• (Number of failed changes / Total changes) * 100.

Tunable Configurations

• Define what constitutes a "failure" (production bug) in Company Settings > Project Management > Incidents. You can filter the relevant issues to include in your CFR calculation using the following criteria:
  • Issue Types
  • Labels
  • Field Values

To configure the filter, open the CFR Rule Builder and click Add Condition. Once you’ve set and saved your critical bug conditions, you can review the logic used to define critical bugs.

Customize CFR Start Time

By default, LinearB sets the CFR start time to when a production failure issue is marked as "In Progress". However, you can customize this by selecting a custom date field from your project management issue. Use the drop-down labeled "Incident Validation" to specify the desired field.

When you update the configuration, LinearB recalculates the CFR metric. Note that it may take up to 2 hours for the changes to take effect.

Incident API

LinearB's Incident API allows you to report change failure instances from any project management platform. For more details on using the Incident API, refer to the LinearB Incident API documentation.

Viewing CFR by Team

LinearB can calculate team-specific CFR, providing a roll-up of team incidents and CFR metrics.

To ensure incidents are accurately mapped to your teams, navigate to Team Settings > Projects and verify that each team is linked to the correct project management boards.

Benchmarking Guidance

• CFR should remain below 15% for high-performing teams.

Error Margins and Limitations

• May not account for minor failures with negligible impact.

Stakeholder Use Cases

• DevOps: Improve pipeline quality.
• Managers: Monitor deployment risks.