fa-product-production-hardening

name	fa-product-production-hardening
description	Provides Stage 6 production-and-hardening guidance for consumer one-off / in-app-purchase products - scaling content to v1 with tooling and post-launch runway, full art/audio/VFX to the lovable bar with licensing cleared, localization-at-scale with localized price tiers reconciled to net-by-geo, device/OS matrix and performance, backend/economy services with anti-cheat and IAP-fraud/refund-abuse defenses and load testing, an accessibility baseline, and multi-layer QA reconciling production IAP end-to-end. Use to reach feature/content-complete with a production-grade IAP/entitlement path.
license	MIT

Gaia Product Production Hardening

Scope and when to use

Use this skill to take a proven slice to feature/content-complete and production-grade. Scope is one-off + IAP/IAG monetization; B2B seat-based SaaS is out of scope and an auto-renew model is red-lined unless an in-scope decision is recorded.

Use when:

• a passing vertical slice must scale to a shippable v1
• production IAP/entitlement must be hardened and reconciled end-to-end
• device, performance, localization, and QA matrices must be cleared

Do not use when:

• no vertical slice has passed its gate yet (run the slice first)
• the title is shipping and only needs soft-launch/live-ops

Required inputs

• the proven vertical slice and the binding monetization instrumentation contract
• the current unit-economics model version and net-by-geo price tiers
• target device/OS matrix, projected DAU, and licensing status

Owned outputs

• content scaled to v1 with tooling and post-launch runway
• localized, device-tested, accessible, load-tested production build
• a production-grade IAP/entitlement path reconciled end-to-end

Core workflow

1. Scale content to v1 via tooling/pipeline; validate each batch against economy/difficulty and build post-launch runway.
2. Bring art/audio/VFX to the lovable bar with all licensing cleared.
3. Localize at scale (culturally adapted) and reconcile localized price tiers to net-by-geo, with locale QA.
4. Clear the device/OS matrix and performance targets: low-end Android, thermals/memory/load, a crash-free-users target, and fragmented-Android QA.
5. Harden backend/economy services + save/cloud-sync + anti-cheat + IAP-fraud/refund-abuse defenses; load test at projected DAU and confirm remote-config economy.
6. Meet an accessibility baseline as a featuring criterion.
7. Run multi-layer QA (functional, soak/stability, compatibility, load) and reconcile production IAP end-to-end.

End-to-end IAP reconciliation

• Production IAP must reconcile from purchase through entitlement to ledger.
• Localized price tiers must tie back to the net-by-geo model, not just display.
• Refund-abuse and IAP-fraud defenses must hold under projected DAU load.

Anti-patterns

• do not scale content without validating each batch against the economy
• do not ship localized prices that drift from the net-by-geo model
• do not skip low-end / fragmented-Android device QA
• do not load test below projected DAU
• do not call IAP done without an end-to-end reconciliation

Handoff and downstream impact

• hand soft-launch a feature/content-complete, production-grade build
• hand the money gate the reconciled production IAP path and net-by-geo tiers
• name the loop-back: a failed QA or reconciliation returns to hardening

Completion checklist

• the build is feature/content-complete with post-launch runway
• localization, device, performance, and accessibility matrices pass
• backend/economy/anti-cheat are load-tested at projected DAU
• production IAP/entitlement reconciles end-to-end

References

• Unit economics model
• Money gate
• Product process
• Product discovery team architecture