What stages are involved in the deployment process of an application or service?

The process of deploying an application or service typically includes the following stages:

1. Environment preparation — installing necessary dependencies, configuring servers, databases, and other services.
2. Application build — compilation, packaging, or preparing the code for launch.
3. Testing — running automated tests to verify correct operation.
4. Deployment — copying files to the server, updating configurations.
5. Database migrations — applying changes to the database structure.
6. Launch and verification — starting the application and checking its functionality.
7. Monitoring and logging — setting up systems to track the status and errors.

In PHP projects, automation tools are often used, such as Composer for dependencies, and scripts for migrations and deployment.