Shipping And Launch

Shipping and Launch

Overview

Ship with confidence. The goal is not just to deploy — it's to deploy safely, with monitoring in place, a rollback plan ready, and a clear understanding of what success looks like. Every launch should be reversible, observable, and incremental.

When to Use

• Deploying a feature to production for the first time
• Releasing a significant change to users
• Migrating data or infrastructure
• Opening a beta or early access program
• Any deployment that carries risk (all of them)

The Pre-Launch Checklist

Code Quality

• All tests pass (unit, integration, e2e)
• Build succeeds with no warnings
• Lint and type checking pass
• Code reviewed and approved
• No TODO comments that should be resolved before launch
• No console.log debugging statements in production code
• Error handling covers expected failure modes

Security

• No secrets in code or version control
• npm audit shows no critical or high vulnerabilities
• Input validation on all user-facing endpoints
• Authentication and authorization checks in place
• Security headers configured (CSP, HSTS, etc.)
• Rate limiting on authentication endpoints
• CORS configured to specific origins (not wildcard)

Performance

• Core Web Vitals within "Good" thresholds
• No N+1 queries in critical paths
• Images optimized (compression, responsive sizes, lazy loading)
• Bundle size within budget
• Database queries have appropriate indexes
• Caching configured for static assets and repeated queries

Accessibility

• Keyboard navigation works for all interactive elements
• Screen reader can convey page content and structure
• Color contrast meets WCAG 2.1 AA (4.5:1 for text)
• Focus management correct for modals and dynamic content
• Error messages are descriptive and associated with form fields
• No accessibility warnings in axe-core or Lighthouse

Infrastructure

• Environment variables set in production
• Database migrations applied (or ready to apply)
• DNS and SSL configured
• CDN configured for static assets
• Logging and error reporting configured
• Health check endpoint exists and responds
• Production verification is read-only or rejection-only; any write-path smoke ran in test/staging and has cleanup evidence

Documentation

• README updated with any new setup requirements
• API documentation current
• ADRs written for any architectural decisions
• Changelog updated
• User-facing documentation updated (if applicable)

Feature Flag Strategy

Ship behind feature flags to decouple deployment from release:

// Feature flag check
const flags = await getFeatureFlags(userId);

if (flags.taskSharing) {
  // New feature: task sharing
  return <TaskSharingPanel task={task} />;
}

// Default: existing behavior
return null;

Feature flag lifecycle:

1. DEPLOY with flag OFF     → Code is in production but inactive
2. ENABLE for team/beta     → Internal testing in production environment
3. GRADUAL ROLLOUT          → 5% → 25% → 50% → 100% of users
4. MONITOR at each stage    → Watch error rates, performance, user feedback
5. CLEAN UP                 → Remove flag and dead code path after full rollout

Rules:

• Every feature flag has an owner and an expiration date
• Clean up flags within 2 weeks of full rollout
• Don't nest feature flags (creates exponential combinations)
• Test both flag states (on and off) in CI

Staged Rollout

The Rollout Sequence

1. DEPLOY to staging
   └── Full test suite in staging environment
   └── Manual smoke test of critical flows

2. DEPLOY to production (feature flag OFF)
   └── Verify deployment succeeded (health check)
   └── Check error monitoring (no new errors)

3. ENABLE for team (flag ON for internal users)
   └── Team uses the feature in production
   └── 24-hour monitoring window

4. CANARY rollout (flag ON for 5% of users)
   └── Monitor error rates, latency, user behavior
   └── Compare metrics: canary vs. baseline
   └── 24-48 hour monitoring window
   └── Advance only if all thresholds pass (see table below)

5. GRADUAL increase (25% -> 50% -> 100%)
   └── Same monitoring at each step
   └── Ability to roll back to previous percentage at any point

6. FULL rollout (flag ON for all users)
   └── Monitor for 1 week
   └── Clean up feature flag

Rollout Decision Thresholds

Use these thresholds to decide whether to advance, hold, or roll back at each stage:

When to Roll Back

Roll back immediately if:

• Error rate increases by more than 2x baseline
• P95 latency increases by more than 50%
• User-reported issues spike
• Data integrity issues detected
• Security vulnerability discovered

Monitoring and Observability

What to Monitor

Application metrics:
├── Error rate (total and by endpoint)
├── Response time (p50, p95, p99)
├── Request volume
├── Active users
└── Key business metrics (conversion, engagement)

Infrastructure metrics:
├── CPU and memory utilization
├── Database connection pool usage
├── Disk space
├── Network latency
└── Queue depth (if applicable)

Client metrics:
├── Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
├── JavaScript errors
├── API error rates from client perspective
└── Page load time

Error Reporting

// Set up error boundary with reporting
class ErrorBoundary extends React.Component {
  componentDidCatch(error: Error, info: React.ErrorInfo) {
    // Report to error tracking service
    reportError(error, {
      componentStack: info.componentStack,
      userId: getCurrentUser()?.id,
      page: window.location.pathname,
    });
  }

  render() {
    if (this.state.hasError) {
      return <ErrorFallback => this.setState({ hasError: false })} />;
    }
    return this.props.children;
  }
}

// Server-side error reporting
app.use((err: Error, req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction) => {
  reportError(err, {
    method: req.method,
    url: req.url,
    userId: req.user?.id,
  });

  // Don't expose internals to users
  res.status(500).json({
    error: { code: 'INTERNAL_ERROR', message: 'Something went wrong' },
  });
});

Post-Launch Verification

In the first hour after launch:

1. Check health endpoint returns 200
2. Check error monitoring dashboard (no new error types)
3. Check latency dashboard (no regression)
4. Verify critical production surfaces with read-only/rejection-only checks
5. Verify logs are flowing and readable
6. Confirm rollback mechanism works (dry run if possible)

Do not run write smoke tests in production or formal environments. A smoke that logs in, creates users or sessions, accepts a webhook, syncs billing, uploads files, or writes business records belongs in test/staging. If a canary write is unavoidable, require explicit user approval, a named canary account, and a cleanup/retention plan before execution.

Rollback Strategy

Every deployment needs a rollback plan before it happens:

## Rollback Plan for [Feature/Release]

### Trigger Conditions
- Error rate > 2x baseline
- P95 latency > [X]ms
- User reports of [specific issue]

### Rollback Steps
1. Disable feature flag (if applicable)
   OR
1. Deploy previous version: `git revert <commit> && git push`
2. Verify rollback: health check, error monitoring
3. Communicate: notify team of rollback

### Database Considerations
- Migration [X] has a rollback: `npx prisma migrate rollback`
- Data inserted by new feature: [preserved / cleaned up]

### Time to Rollback
- Feature flag: < 1 minute
- Redeploy previous version: < 5 minutes
- Database rollback: < 15 minutes

See Also

• For security pre-launch checks, see references/security-checklist.md
• For performance pre-launch checklist, see references/performance-checklist.md
• For accessibility verification before launch, see references/accessibility-checklist.md

Common Rationalizations

Red Flags

• Deploying without a rollback plan
• No monitoring or error reporting in production
• Big-bang releases (everything at once, no staging)
• Feature flags with no expiration or owner
• No one monitoring the deploy for the first hour
• Production environment configuration done by memory, not code
• "It's Friday afternoon, let's ship it"

Verification

Before deploying:

• Pre-launch checklist completed (all sections green)
• Feature flag configured (if applicable)
• Rollback plan documented
• Monitoring dashboards set up
• Team notified of deployment
• <project-name>/.dev-agent/ship/LAUNCH.md records the go/no-go decision, rollback plan, owners, and follow-up notes
• bin/dev-flow ship-check <project-name> passes

After deploying:

• Health check returns 200
• Error rate is normal
• Latency is normal
• Critical user flow works
• Logs are flowing
• Rollback tested or verified ready