Production Launch Checklist

Use this checklist before launching a new service or material production change. Block launch when ownership, rollback, data safety, or user impact detection is unclear.

Ownership

• Owning team is identified.
• Business owner is identified.
• On-call or support owner is identified.
• Escalation path is tested.
• Service catalog entry is complete.

Delivery

• Build and deploy pipelines are defined as code.
• Artifact identity is recorded.
• Rollback or disablement path is documented and tested.
• Feature flags or traffic controls are ready where needed.
• Database migrations have rollback or forward-fix plans.

Operations

• Health checks are meaningful.
• Dashboard covers traffic, errors, latency, and saturation.
• Alerts route to the right responders.
• Runbook covers common failure modes.
• Smoke tests or synthetic checks exist for critical flows.

Security and data

• Authentication and authorization are reviewed.
• Secrets come from approved stores.
• Workload identity or scoped credentials are used.
• Data classification and retention are documented.
• Vulnerability and dependency scans are complete.

Final decision

• Launch owner approves.
• Known risks are accepted or mitigated.
• Communication plan is ready.
• Support team knows what is changing.