release-checklist.md

Release Checklist

How to use: Complete before every production release. Pair with codexkit-docs-shipper skill for documentation updates and codexkit-high-signal-review for final code review.

Release Info

Field	Value
Version
Date
Release Lead
Type	Hotfix / Patch / Minor / Major

Verification

• Build — CI passes on release branch (main or release/*)
• Tests — All unit, integration, and E2E tests pass
• Migrations — Database migrations run cleanly on staging
• Observability — Alerts, dashboards, and logs confirmed for new features
• Security — No new high/critical vulnerabilities in dependency scan
• Performance — No regression on key latency/throughput benchmarks

Documentation

• Changelog — CHANGELOG.md updated with user-facing changes
• README / Operator docs — Updated if setup, config, or API changed
• Migration guide — Written if there are breaking changes
• Internal handoff — Support team briefed on new behavior

Rollout

Item	Detail
Feature flags
Rollout strategy
Rollback plan
Owner on point
Rollback trigger

Post-Release

• Smoke test — Core user flows verified in production
• Monitoring — Watch dashboards for 30 min post-deploy
• Stakeholder notify — Slack/email sent to affected teams
• Retro notes — Any deployment issues captured for retro

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📋 Worked Example

Release Info

Field	Value
Version	v2.3.1
Date	2026-03-20
Release Lead	Mark Liu
Type	Patch

Verification

• Build — CI green on release/2.3.1
• Tests — 847 tests pass (2 skipped, known flaky)
• Migrations — 1 migration (add reset_token_expires_at column) clean on staging
• Observability — Password reset dashboard added, alert on >5 failures/min
• Security — No new vulnerabilities in npm audit
• Performance — p99 latency unchanged at 180ms

Documentation

• Changelog — Added "Password reset flow" entry
• README — Updated env vars section with RESET_TOKEN_TTL
• Migration guide — N/A (no breaking changes)
• Internal handoff — Support team briefed in #support-eng Slack

Rollout

Item	Detail
Feature flags	password-reset-v2 ON for Sales team pilot (120 users)
Rollout strategy	Sales pilot → All internal → External, over 2 weeks
Rollback plan	Revert to v2.3.0 via deploy --rollback, <3 min
Owner on point	Mark Liu (primary), Linh Vo (backup, Apr 15–22)
Rollback trigger	Reset failure rate >2% or p99 >300ms

Post-Release

• Smoke test — Reset flow tested with 3 pilot users
• Monitoring — Dashboard clear for 45 min post-deploy
• Stakeholder notify — Posted in #releases and #sales
• Retro notes — Minor: staging migration took 8 min (expected 2) — investigate