Production readiness guidelines provide a structured checklist to confirm applications are reliable, secure, and scalable before live deployment.

Core Checklist Categories

Teams assess applications across key areas using pass/fail criteria during production readiness reviews (PRRs).

Functional Testing

Comprehensive testing verifies feature completeness and performance under load.

  • Unit, integration, and end-to-end tests pass defined thresholds with peer-reviewed code changes.
  • Benchmarks for response times, throughput, and error rates meet SLOs.
  • Code coverage exceeds standards, confirmed via peer validation.

Security and Compliance

Security gates protect against threats and ensure regulatory alignment.

  • Vulnerability scans, encryption, API security, and access controls (e.g., OAuth2) are implemented.
  • Compliance checks validated by peers in CI/CD pipelines.
  • Automated blocks for non-compliant builds.

Observability and Monitoring

Full visibility enables proactive issue detection and recovery.

  • Logging, metrics (latency, errors, resource usage), and alerting tied to SLOs.
  • Incident response runbooks, on-call rotations, and scalability tests with SRE peer input.
  • Regular backup and disaster recovery validation.

Deployment and Operations

Repeatable processes support safe, scalable releases.

  • Automated CI/CD pipelines with rollbacks, staging mirrors, and IaC; peer-reviewed configs.
  • Operational training and capacity planning confirmed.

Peer Review Process

Cross-functional reviews catch issues early and build deployment confidence.

  • At least one approving review per production change from developers, leads, and SREs; CI/CD gates enforce this.
  • Documented outcomes and threaded discussions in PRs/MRs for audits.
  • Metrics tracking (e.g., review time) ensures efficiency, with streamlined hotfix paths.

Documentation and Review

Clear artifacts aid maintenance and audits.

  • Up-to-date API docs, architecture diagrams, and onboarding guides in version control.
  • Final PRR with peer sign-offs as gated criteria.

Implementation Tips

Automate checklist items in tools like GitLab or GitHub for consistency, reserving manual peer reviews for high-impact changes. Regularly refine based on post-deployment metrics to evolve readiness over time.