sysop@hub:~/tools/patch-tuesday$

patch-tuesday

Microsoft ships security updates on the second Tuesday of every month, US Pacific Time — "Patch Tuesday". This page computes the next few dates live from your device's clock, nothing to keep updated by hand and nothing that can go stale.

a common rollout cadence

There's no single official rule for how fast to deploy — this is a widely used starting framework (ring-based rollout), not a Microsoft requirement. Adjust to your own change-management policy and risk tolerance.

Ring	Typical offset	Who
Pilot	Day 0–1	IT team, a handful of volunteers — catch obvious breakage fast
Early adopters	Day 3–5	~5–10% of devices across different roles/departments
Broad	Day 7–10	Majority of the fleet, once the early rings look clean
Critical/exception	Day 14–21	Servers and systems needing longer validation windows, within your SLA for patching known-exploited CVEs

If a CVE is listed as actively exploited (see exploited-now), that usually overrides the normal cadence — patch it faster, especially on anything internet-facing.