# Release Checklist

**Release:** _______________  **Date / window:** _______________
**Release manager:** _______________  **Go/no-go decision-maker:** _______________

---

## 1. Before the day

- [ ] Scope frozen; what is in this release is written down
- [ ] QA checklist complete and signed
- [ ] Security checklist complete and signed
- [ ] Change approved through whatever governance applies
- [ ] Stakeholders told what is changing and when
- [ ] Support team briefed on new behaviour and known issues
- [ ] Documentation and release notes updated
- [ ] Dependencies confirmed ready (other teams, vendors, data)

## 2. Rollback — decided before you need it

- [ ] Rollback procedure written, step by step
- [ ] Rollback **tested**, not assumed
- [ ] Backup taken immediately before release, and its restore verified
- [ ] Database changes are reversible, or a forward-fix is prepared
- [ ] Point of no return identified: after step ___, rollback is no longer possible
- [ ] Rollback decision-maker named: _______________

> The most common cause of a long outage is discovering during the incident that
> the rollback does not work.

## 3. Go / no-go

| Criterion | Met? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| All blocking defects closed | | |
| Environments healthy | | |
| Team available for the window | | |
| No conflicting change in flight | | |
| Business timing acceptable | | |

**Decision:** GO / NO-GO   **By:** _______________   **Time:** _______________

## 4. Deployment

- [ ] Announce start
- [ ] Maintenance page enabled, if applicable
- [ ] Backup confirmed complete
- [ ] Deploy
- [ ] Configuration and secrets verified in the target environment
- [ ] Database migrations run and verified
- [ ] Caches invalidated where needed
- [ ] Maintenance page removed

## 5. Verification — before declaring success

- [ ] Smoke test of critical paths passes
- [ ] Authentication works, including a fresh login
- [ ] A real transaction completes end to end
- [ ] Integrations responding
- [ ] Error rates normal
- [ ] Response times normal
- [ ] Logs show nothing unexpected
- [ ] Scheduled jobs still running
- [ ] Customer data intact — verified by count or checksum, not by assumption

> "The site loads" is not verification. Verify the thing the business depends on.

## 6. After

- [ ] Announce completion
- [ ] Monitor for an agreed period: ___ hours
- [ ] Release notes published
- [ ] Version tagged in source control
- [ ] Changelog updated
- [ ] Previous version retained for rollback until: _______________
- [ ] Retrospective scheduled if anything went wrong

## 7. If it goes wrong

**Symptoms that trigger rollback:**

**Who decides:** _______________
**How long we try to fix forward before rolling back:** ___ minutes

---

## Record

| | |
|---|---|
| Started | |
| Completed | |
| Outcome | Success / Rolled back / Partial |
| Issues encountered | |
| Follow-up actions | |