release-readiness Skill

<skill> <name>release-readiness</name> <description> Ensures releases are deliberate and safe through structured go/no-go checks. Covers rollback planning, monitoring, staged rollout, and stakeholder communication. Reduces deployment risk and improves recovery speed. </description> <when-to-use> <trigger>Before any production deployment.</trigger> <trigger>Before major version releases or breaking changes.</trigger> <trigger>Before releases with database migrations.</trigger> <trigger>Before security-sensitive releases.</trigger> <required>All Standard+ complexity releases must complete readiness check.</required> </when-to-use> <readiness-checklist> <category name="Code Quality"> <check status="required">All quality gates pass (build, lint, test, coverage).</check> <check status="required">No Critical or High severity bugs open.</check> <check status="required">Code review completed and approved.</check> <check status="recommended">Security review completed for auth/data changes.</check> </category> <category name="Testing"> <check status="required">Unit tests pass with coverage targets met.</check> <check status="required">Integration tests pass.</check> <check status="conditional">E2E tests pass (required for High+ risk).</check> <check status="conditional">Regression tests pass (required for Medium+ risk).</check> <check status="conditional">Performance tests within budget (if perf-sensitive).</check> <check status="conditional">Chaos tests passed (if reliability-critical).</check> </category> <category name="Rollback Plan"> <check status="required">Rollback procedure documented.</check> <check status="required">Rollback owner identified and available.</check> <check status="required">Rollback tested in staging (for major releases).</check> <check status="required">Database migrations are reversible or rollback script exists.</check> <check status="required">Maximum rollback time estimated.</check> </category> <category name="Monitoring & Alerting"> <check status="required">Key metrics dashboards ready.</check> <check status="required">Alerts configured for error rates, latency, availability.</check> <check status="required">Log aggregation capturing new code paths.</check> <check status="recommended">Baseline metrics captured before deploy.</check> </category> <category name="Staged Rollout"> <check status="conditional">Feature flags in place (if applicable).</check> <check status="conditional">Canary or percentage rollout configured.</check> <check status="required">Rollout stages defined (e.g., 1% → 10% → 50% → 100%).</check> <check status="required">Success criteria for each stage defined.</check> <check status="required">Bake time between stages documented.</check> </category> <category name="Communication"> <check status="required">Stakeholders notified of release timing.</check> <check status="conditional">User-facing changelog prepared (if visible changes).</check> <check status="conditional">Support team briefed (if user-impacting).</check> <check status="required">On-call/incident owner identified.</check> </category> <category name="Documentation"> <check status="required">Spec-code consistency verified.</check> <check status="conditional">API docs updated (if API changes).</check> <check status="conditional">User docs updated (if behavior changes).</check> <check status="conditional">Runbook updated (if operational changes).</check> </category> </readiness-checklist> <go-no-go-criteria> <go>All "required" checks pass; all "conditional" checks applicable to this release pass.</go> <conditional-go>Minor gaps with documented mitigations and owner commitment to address post-release.</conditional-go> <no-go>Any Critical gap: failing quality gates, missing rollback plan, no monitoring, unreviewed code.</no-go> </go-no-go-criteria> <rollback-plan-template> <section name="Trigger Conditions">When to initiate rollback (error rate >X%, latency >Yms, user reports).</section> <section name="Decision Maker">Who authorizes rollback.</section> <section name="Procedure"> <step>Revert deployment to previous version (specific command/process).</step> <step>Run database rollback migration if applicable.</step> <step>Verify services healthy post-rollback.</step> <step>Notify stakeholders of rollback.</step> </section> <section name="Estimated Time">Total time from decision to recovery.</section> <section name="Post-Rollback">Root cause analysis, fix forward plan.</section> </rollback-plan-template> <post-release-validation> <timing>Perform within 15 minutes of deployment completion.</timing> <checks> <check>Application health checks pass.</check> <check>Key user flows functional (smoke test).</check> <check>Error rates at or below baseline.</check> <check>Latency within acceptable range.</check> <check>No unexpected alerts firing.</check> <check>Logs show expected behavior.</check> </checks> <escalation>If any check fails, consider immediate rollback or hotfix.</escalation> </post-release-validation> <output-format> <section name="Release Summary">Version, scope, risk level.</section> <section name="Checklist Results">Table: Category | Check | Status | Notes.</section> <section name="Rollback Plan">Using template above.</section> <section name="Rollout Plan">Stages with success criteria and timing.</section> <section name="Decision">Go | Conditional Go (with conditions) | No-Go (with blockers).</section> <section name="Post-Release Validation Plan">Checks to perform after deploy.</section> </output-format> <anti-patterns> <anti-pattern>"We'll figure out rollback if we need it."</anti-pattern> <anti-pattern>Deploying Friday afternoon without on-call coverage.</anti-pattern> <anti-pattern>Skipping staging validation to meet deadline.</anti-pattern> <anti-pattern>No monitoring before deploying new features.</anti-pattern> <anti-pattern>Big-bang deployments without staged rollout.</anti-pattern> <anti-pattern>Deploying irreversible database changes without testing rollback.</anti-pattern> </anti-patterns> <integration> <with-skill name="test-strategy">Test coverage informs readiness.</with-skill> <with-skill name="performance-budgeting">Performance within budget is go criterion.</with-skill> <with-skill name="chaos-readiness">Chaos test results inform reliability confidence.</with-skill> <with-skill name="spec-consistency">Spec alignment verified before release.</with-skill> <with-agent name="developer">Prepares release, documents rollback.</with-agent> <with-agent name="tester">Confirms test gates pass.</with-agent> <with-agent name="architect">Reviews readiness for major releases.</with-agent> </integration> <references> <reference>docs/deployment.md for deployment procedures.</reference> <reference>docs/testing.md for test gate definitions.</reference> </references> </skill>

Agent Skills: release-readiness

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