2.3Deployment Checklists

Deployment checklists prevent the "I forgot to..." moments that cause outages. They transform a complex, error-prone process into a repeatable sequence of verifiable steps.

Pre-Deployment Checklist

## Pre-Deployment: v2.4.1

### Code Readiness
- [ ] All PRs merged to release branch
- [ ] Release branch passes CI (link to build: ___)
- [ ] No open Sev-1 or Sev-2 bugs against this release
- [ ] Code freeze confirmed with dev team

### Environment Readiness
- [ ] Staging environment updated to match production config
- [ ] Database migration tested on staging
- [ ] New environment variables set in production config (not yet active)
- [ ] Feature flags configured (new features off by default)

### Testing Readiness
- [ ] Full regression suite passed on staging (link to report: ___)
- [ ] Performance tests passed (link to report: ___)
- [ ] Security scan completed (link to report: ___)
- [ ] Smoke test suite ready for post-deployment

### Stakeholder Readiness
- [ ] Release notes shared with support team
- [ ] Customer communication scheduled (if applicable)
- [ ] Go/no-go meeting scheduled for [date/time]
- [ ] On-call engineer confirmed for deployment window

Deployment Checklist

## Deployment: v2.4.1

### Deployment Steps
- [ ] Announce deployment start in #engineering channel
- [ ] Set status page to "Maintenance" (if required)
- [ ] Run database migration (estimated time: 5 minutes)
- [ ] Deploy application servers (rolling deployment, zero downtime)
- [ ] Verify deployment version: curl api.example.com/health
- [ ] Enable feature flags for internal users only
- [ ] Run smoke test suite (link: ___)
- [ ] Monitor error rates for 15 minutes (dashboard: ___)
- [ ] Enable feature flags for all users
- [ ] Update status page to "Operational"
- [ ] Announce deployment complete in #engineering channel

### Deployment Contacts
| Role | Person | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy lead | Alice | @alice (Slack) |
| On-call engineer | Bob | @bob (Slack), +1-555-0123 |
| QA verification | Carol | @carol (Slack) |
| Rollback decision | Dave (Engineering Manager) | @dave (Slack) |

Post-Deployment Verification Checklist

## Post-Deployment Verification: v2.4.1

### Smoke Tests (automated)
- [ ] Homepage loads (< 2s)
- [ ] User can log in
- [ ] User can search products
- [ ] User can add to cart
- [ ] User can check out (test account)
- [ ] API health endpoint returns 200

### Manual Verification
- [ ] New multi-currency feature works in production
  - [ ] EUR checkout (test account)
  - [ ] GBP checkout (test account)
  - [ ] JPY checkout (test account)
- [ ] Cart total rounding fix verified with discount codes
- [ ] Existing functionality spot-check: [list critical paths]

### Monitoring
- [ ] Error rate below threshold (< 0.5%)
- [ ] p95 latency below threshold (< 2s)
- [ ] No new error types in logs
- [ ] Database connection pool stable
- [ ] Memory and CPU within normal range
- [ ] Monitor for 1 hour after deployment