# Onboarding Checklist

> Use when performing onboarding checklist — provides a comprehensive onboarding checklist for new engineering team members covering environment setup, access provisioning, codebase orientation, team introductions, and ramp-up milestones. This template helps teams deliver a consistent, thorough onboarding experience that gets new engineers productive quickly.

- Skill: `cloudthinker-ai/onboarding-checklist` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cloudthinker-ai/onboarding-checklist`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cloudthinker-ai/onboarding-checklist/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: cloudthinker-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/cloudthinker-ai)
- Updated: 2026-09-08
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cloudthinker-ai/onboarding-checklist

---


# Onboarding Checklist

## Phase 1: Pre-Start Preparation (Before Day 1)

Complete before the new team member arrives.

- [ ] Assign onboarding buddy: ___
- [ ] Assign manager: ___
- [ ] Order equipment (laptop, monitors, peripherals)
- [ ] Create accounts:
  - [ ] Email
  - [ ] Source control (GitHub / GitLab)
  - [ ] CI/CD platform
  - [ ] Cloud provider console
  - [ ] Ticketing system
  - [ ] Collaboration tools (Slack, Teams)
  - [ ] Monitoring and observability platforms
  - [ ] VPN / network access
- [ ] Add to relevant team channels and distribution lists
- [ ] Schedule Week 1 meetings (manager 1:1, team intro, buddy sync)
- [ ] Prepare starter task(s) in the backlog

## Phase 2: Week 1 — Environment and Orientation

- [ ] Welcome meeting with manager (team mission, expectations, 30/60/90 goals)
- [ ] Team introductions and social coffee chat
- [ ] Development environment setup:
  - [ ] Clone primary repositories
  - [ ] Run local build and tests successfully
  - [ ] Set up IDE with team-standard extensions and config
  - [ ] Verify access to staging/dev environments
- [ ] Review key documentation:
  - [ ] Architecture overview
  - [ ] Team working agreements
  - [ ] On-call expectations and runbooks
  - [ ] Incident response process
- [ ] First code change: small, low-risk PR (typo fix, test addition, doc update)
- [ ] Daily check-in with onboarding buddy

## Phase 3: Weeks 2-4 — Ramp-Up

- [ ] Complete starter task(s) with buddy support
- [ ] Shadow an on-call shift
- [ ] Participate in sprint ceremonies (standup, planning, retro)
- [ ] Review recent incident postmortems
- [ ] Understand deployment pipeline end-to-end
- [ ] Cross-team introduction meetings:
  - [ ] Key upstream dependencies: ___
  - [ ] Key downstream consumers: ___
  - [ ] Platform / infrastructure team
- [ ] Complete any required compliance training
- [ ] Give feedback on onboarding experience so far

## Phase 4: 30/60/90 Day Milestones

| Milestone | Target | Status |
|-----------|--------|--------|
| First PR merged | Week 1 | |
| Starter task completed | Week 2-3 | |
| Independent feature work | Week 4-6 | |
| First on-call shift | Week 6-8 | |
| Lead a small project | Week 8-12 | |
| Onboarding feedback submitted | Day 30 | |
| 1:1 check-in with skip-level manager | Day 60 | |
| Full team contributor | Day 90 | |

## Counter-Rationalizations

| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|----------|---------|-----|
| "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate |
| "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses |
| "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears |
| "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate |
| "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams |

## Output Format

### Summary

- **New hire:** ___
- **Team:** ___
- **Start date:** ___
- **Buddy:** ___
- **Manager:** ___
- **Current phase:** ___

### Action Items

- [ ] Complete all pre-start account provisioning
- [ ] Verify development environment works end-to-end
- [ ] Schedule all Week 1 meetings
- [ ] Review and update onboarding docs based on new hire feedback
- [ ] Conduct 30-day onboarding retrospective with new hire