perplexity-prod-checklist

name	perplexity-prod-checklist
description	Execute Perplexity production deployment checklist for Sonar API integrations. Use when deploying Perplexity integrations to production, preparing for launch, or implementing go-live procedures. Trigger with phrases like "perplexity production", "deploy perplexity", "perplexity go-live", "perplexity launch checklist".
allowed-tools	Read, Bash(kubectl:*), Bash(curl:*), Grep
version	1.12.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","perplexity","deployment"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code, also compatible with Codex and OpenClaw

Perplexity Production Checklist

Overview

Complete checklist for deploying Perplexity Sonar API integrations to production. Perplexity-specific concerns: every API call performs a live web search (variable latency), citations link to third-party sites (must validate), and costs scale per-request plus per-token.

Prerequisites

• Staging environment tested
• Production API key generated (separate from dev/staging)
• Monitoring configured
• Cost budget defined

Production Readiness Checklist

API Configuration

• Production PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in secret manager (not env file)
• Key starts with pplx- and has credits loaded
• Separate API keys for dev/staging/prod
• Base URL is https://api.perplexity.ai (not localhost/proxy)
• Model selection configured: sonar for fast, sonar-pro for deep

Code Quality

• All search calls wrapped in retry with exponential backoff
• Rate limiting implemented (50 RPM default)
• Query sanitization strips PII before sending to Perplexity
• Citations parsed from response (not extracted from text)
• max_tokens set on all requests (prevents runaway costs)
• Timeouts configured: 15s for sonar, 30s for sonar-pro
• Error handling covers 401, 402, 429, 500+ status codes
• No hardcoded API keys in source code

Performance

• Result caching implemented for repeated queries
• Cache TTL appropriate: 30min for news, 4hrs for research, 24hrs for facts
• Streaming enabled for user-facing search (reduces perceived latency)