| name | release-prep |
| description | Review environment variables, migrations, config differences, rollback paths, and operational checklists before release. Use it to determine whether completed work is actually ready to ship. |
Release Prep
Purpose
Check whether a completed feature or application can be deployed safely to production.
Core Principles
- Separate code quality from release readiness.
- Judge readiness from the production environment perspective, not the dev environment.
- Check environment variables, secrets, and network config differences first.
- Review data changes together with rollout order and rollback paths.
- Plan for recovery from failed deployments, not only successful ones.
- Do not leave operational steps vague or implicit.
Inputs
- Description of the feature or app being released
- Related code changes
- Environment variables or deployment config
- Database migration, seed, or backfill details
- Target environments such as dev, staging, or prod
- Monitoring, alerting, or rollback procedures, if available
Workflow
- Summarize the release scope and user impact in one line.
- Document environment-specific differences and required variables.
- Review database changes and rollout order.
- Check external dependencies and credential injection paths.
- List health checks, logs, and monitoring items to inspect after deployment.
- Define rollback or workaround steps for failure cases.
Output Format
Release Summary
- Deployment target
- User impact range
Pre-Release Checks
- Required environment variables
- Config or infrastructure changes
- Readiness of external dependencies
Data Change Review
- Whether migrations are involved
- Rollout order
- Whether backfill or data-integrity validation is required
Deployment Procedure
- Tasks before deployment
- Checks during deployment
- Checks after deployment
Rollback and Response
- Whether rollback is possible
- Rollback steps
- Workarounds during incidents
Key Risks
- Operational outage risk
- Configuration omission risk
- Items that still need confirmation
When Information Is Missing
- Split missing operational data into explicit follow-up items.
- Treat unclear migration impact as elevated data risk.
- Document any non-automated procedure as a manual checklist.
