Day One Patch

Day-One Patch

Every shipped game has a day-one patch. Planning it before launch day prevents chaos. This skill scopes the patch to only what is safe and necessary, gates it through a lightweight QA pass, and ensures a rollback plan exists before anything ships. It is a mini-sprint — not a hotfix, not a full sprint.

When to run:

• After the gold master build is locked (cert approved or launch candidate tagged)
• When known bugs exist that are too risky to address in the gold master
• When cert feedback requires minor fixes post-submission
• When a pre-launch playtest surfaces must-fix issues after the release gate passed

Day-one patch scope rules:

• Only P1/P2 bugs that are SAFE to fix quickly
• No new features — this is fix-only
• No refactoring — minimum viable change
• Any fix that requires more than 4 hours of dev time belongs in patch 1.1, not day-one

Output: production/releases/day-one-patch-[version].md

Phase 1: Load Release Context

Read:

• production/stage.txt — confirm project is in Release stage
• The most recent file in production/gate-checks/ — read the release gate verdict
• production/qa/bugs/*.md — load all bugs with Status: Open or Fixed — Pending Verification
• production/sprints/ most recent — understand what shipped
• production/security/security-audit-*.md most recent — check for any open security items

If production/stage.txt is not Release or Polish:

"Day-one patch prep is for Release-stage projects. Current stage: [stage]. This skill is not appropriate until you are approaching launch."

Phase 2: Scope the Patch

Step 2a — Classify open bugs for patch inclusion

For each open bug, evaluate:

Step 2b — Present patch scope to user

Use AskUserQuestion:

• Prompt: "Based on open bugs and cert feedback, here is the proposed day-one patch scope. Does this look right?"
• Show: table of included bugs (ID, severity, description, estimated effort)
• Show: table of deferred bugs (ID, severity, reason deferred)
• Options: [A] Approve this scope / [B] Adjust — I want to add or remove items / [C] No day-one patch needed

If [C]: output "No day-one patch required. Proceed to /launch-checklist." Stop.

Step 2c — Check total scope

Sum estimated effort. If total exceeds 1 day of work:

"⚠️ Patch scope is [N hours] — this exceeds a safe day-one window. Consider deferring lower-priority items to patch 1.1. A bloated day-one patch introduces more risk than it removes."

Use AskUserQuestion to confirm proceeding or reduce scope.

Phase 3: Rollback Plan

Before any code is written, define the rollback procedure. This is non-negotiable.

Spawn release-manager via Task. Ask them to produce a rollback plan covering:

• How to revert to the gold master build on each target platform
• Platform-specific rollback constraints (some platforms cannot roll back cert builds)
• Who is responsible for triggering the rollback
• What player communication is required if a rollback occurs

Present the rollback plan. Ask: "May I write this rollback plan to production/releases/rollback-plan-[version].md?"

Do not proceed to Phase 4 until the rollback plan is written.

Phase 4: Implement Fixes

For each bug in the approved scope, spawn a focused implementation loop:

1. Spawn lead-programmer via Task with:

   • The bug report (exact reproduction steps and root cause if known)
   • The constraint: minimum viable fix only, no cleanup
   • The affected files (from bug report Technical Context section)

2. The lead-programmer implements and runs targeted tests.

3. Spawn qa-tester via Task to verify: does the bug reproduce after the fix?

For config/data-only fixes: make the change directly (no programmer agent needed). Confirm the value changed and re-run any relevant smoke test.

Phase 5: Patch QA Gate

This is a lightweight QA pass — not a full /team-qa. The patch is already QA-approved from the release gate; we are only re-verifying the changed areas.

Spawn qa-lead via Task with:

• List of all changed files
• List of bugs fixed (with verification status from Phase 4)
• The smoke check scope for the affected systems

Ask qa-lead to determine: Is a targeted smoke check sufficient, or do any fixes touch systems that require a broader regression?

Run the required QA scope:

• Targeted smoke check — run /smoke-check [affected-systems]
• Broader regression — run targeted tests in tests/unit/ and tests/integration/ for affected systems

QA verdict must be PASS or PASS WITH WARNINGS before proceeding. If FAIL: scope the failing fix out of the day-one patch and defer to 1.1.

Phase 6: Generate Patch Record

# Day-One Patch: [Game Name] v[version]

**Date prepared**: [date]
**Target release**: [launch date or "day of launch"]
**Base build**: [gold master tag or commit]
**Patch build**: [patch tag or commit]

---

## Patch Notes (Internal)

### Bugs Fixed
| BUG-ID | Severity | Description | Fix summary |
|--------|----------|-------------|-------------|
| BUG-NNN | S[1-4] | [description] | [one-line fix] |

### Deferred to 1.1
| BUG-ID | Severity | Description | Reason deferred |
|--------|----------|-------------|-----------------|
| BUG-NNN | S[1-4] | [description] | [reason] |

---

## QA Sign-Off

**QA scope**: [Targeted smoke / Broader regression]
**Verdict**: [PASS / PASS WITH WARNINGS]
**QA lead**: qa-lead agent
**Date**: [date]
**Warnings (if any)**: [list or "None"]

---

## Rollback Plan

See: `production/releases/rollback-plan-[version].md`

**Trigger condition**: If [N] or more S1 bugs are reported within [X] hours of launch, execute rollback.
**Rollback owner**: [user / producer]

---

## Approvals Required Before Deploy

- [ ] lead-programmer: all fixes reviewed
- [ ] qa-lead: QA gate PASS confirmed
- [ ] producer: deployment timing approved
- [ ] release-manager: platform submission confirmed

---

## Player-Facing Patch Notes

[Draft for community-manager to review before publishing]

[list player-facing changes in plain language]

Ask: "May I write this patch record to production/releases/day-one-patch-[version].md?"

Phase 7: Next Steps

After the patch record is written:

1. Run /patch-notes to generate the player-facing version of the patch notes
2. Run /bug-report verify [BUG-ID] for each fixed bug after the patch is live
3. Run /bug-report close [BUG-ID] for each verified fix
4. Schedule a post-launch review 48–72 hours after launch using /retrospective launch

If any S1 bugs remain open after the patch:

"⚠️ S1 bugs remain open and were not patched. These are accepted risks. Document them in the rollback plan trigger conditions — if they occur at scale, rollback may be preferable to a follow-up patch."

Use AskUserQuestion:

• Prompt: "Day-one patch complete. What's next?"
• Options:
  • [A] Run /patch-notes — generate player-facing patch notes
  • [B] Run /bug-report to log any issues found post-deploy
  • [C] Stop here

Collaborative Protocol

• Scope discipline is everything — resist scope creep; every addition increases risk
• Rollback plan first, always — a patch without a rollback plan is irresponsible
• Deferred is not forgotten — every deferred bug gets a 1.1 ticket automatically
• Player communication is part of the patch — /patch-notes is a required output, not optional

Source: Donchitos/Claude-Code-Game-Studios → .claude/skills/day-one-patch/SKILL.md