Deployment Checklist

Deployment Checklist: [PROJECT NAME]

Release: v[X.Y.Z] Date: YYYY-MM-DD Deploy Lead: DevOps Approved by: Tech Lead + John Environment: Staging → Production

Pre-Deployment (T-1 Day)

Verification

• All tests passing in CI
• Code review approved and merged
• UAT sign-off received
• Release notes prepared
• No critical/high open bugs

Preparation

• Database backup completed
• Staging environment matches production config
• Rollback procedure tested
• Stakeholders notified of deployment window
• On-call person confirmed and available

Configuration

• Environment variables verified
• API keys / secrets rotated if needed
• DNS changes prepared (if applicable)
• SSL certificates valid (expiry > 30 days)
• Third-party service limits adequate

Deployment (T-0)

Window

• Allowed: Tue-Thu, 10:00-16:00
• Never: Fridays
• Hotfix: Anytime business hours (Tech Lead + John approval)
• Emergency: Anytime (John + Alem approval)

Execution

• Announce deployment start in channel
• Deploy to staging — verify
• Run staging smoke tests
• Manual approval gate — Tech Lead confirms
• Deploy to production
• Monitor deployment logs for errors

Post-Deployment (T+0)

Smoke Tests

• Homepage loads correctly
• Authentication works (login/logout)
• Core user flow #1 works
• Core user flow #2 works
• API health endpoint returns 200
• No errors in error tracking (Sentry)

Monitoring (First 30 Minutes)

• Error rate normal (< 1%)
• Response times normal (p95 < 500ms)
• No 5xx errors in logs
• Database connections stable
• Memory/CPU usage normal

Communication

• Announce deployment complete
• Send release notes to stakeholders
• Update project status

Rollback Plan

Rollback Triggers

• Critical functionality broken
• Data integrity issues
• Security vulnerability discovered
• Error rate > 5%
• Response time > 3x normal

Rollback Procedure

1. Announce rollback in channel
2. Revert to previous version
3. Restore database backup (if schema changed)
4. Verify rollback successful
5. Announce rollback complete
6. Create incident report

Rollback Time Targets

• Application rollback: < 15 minutes
• Database rollback: < 30 minutes
• Full rollback: < 1 hour

Sign-off