What is a major consequence of deploying to higher environments without proper sandbox syncing?

Deploying to higher environments without proper sandbox syncing can lead to discrepancies that may cause errors during the deployment process. This situation arises because higher environments, such as staging or production, may contain different configurations or data from the sandbox where the development and testing take place. If these environments are not synchronized properly, unexpected issues may surface, such as missing dependencies or misaligned data structures.

This misalignment can result in failed deployments, rollback events, or even corrupted data, significantly impacting the reliability and effectiveness of the deployment pipeline. Consequently, it's essential to ensure that higher environments accurately reflect the sandbox to minimize these discrepancies and maintain a smooth deployment process.