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Deployment
Walk the pre-launch checklist end to end
The final go/no-go pass across security, payments, data, deploy, and observability before you flip the switch.
Free Prompt
Walk me through a final pre-launch checklist for my app. This is the go/no-go pass, not the time to build new things. For each item, tell me if it's done, what's missing, and whether it's a blocker (fix before launch) or an issue (fix soon after).
Check each area:
1. Security: secrets are out of the repo and in a secret store, security headers are set, HTTPS is enforced with valid certs, rate limiting is on public endpoints, input validation exists on every form/API, admin routes require admin.
2. Data: database backups run automatically, restore has been tested, at least one point-in-time or nightly copy lives off-account, no PII is logged, deletion honors user requests.
3. Payments (if applicable): Stripe webhooks verify signatures, checkout is idempotent, dunning emails are configured, refunds work, the customer sees a real receipt.
4. Deploy: CI runs tests and blocks bad merges, deploys are automated and can roll back, migrations follow zero-downtime patterns, staging exists and matches production.
5. Observability: structured logging is on, error tracker is installed with releases and PII scrubbing, uptime monitor watches the critical paths, dashboard is set up, alerts route to a real pager.
6. Auth: sign-in flows work including password reset and email verification, sessions expire sensibly, common auth traps (email enumeration, weak tokens, missing rate limits on login) are addressed.
7. Compliance and legal: privacy policy and terms of service published, cookie/consent banner if I need one, contact information for security reports.
8. Support: a way for users to email me is visible on the site, canned responses ready for the top three complaints, status page linked.
9. Content: no lorem ipsum, no broken links on the top ten pages, meta tags and Open Graph images set, favicon exists and is correct on retina.
10. Launch day itself: runbook printed or open, rollback tested, on-call rotation configured, launch smoke tests wired up, a plan for a bad first hour.
Be honest, not diplomatic. If something's not ready, say so. The deliverable is a per-item status report with 'done', 'missing', or 'partial', with the top blockers surfaced first and a written recommendation on whether to launch, delay by X days, or launch soft (limited traffic).
What This Does / How This Helps
This walks the final go/no-go checklist across security, data, payments, deploy, observability, auth, legal, support, content, and launch-day mechanics, and gives you an honest read on what's blocking launch and what can slip until after. Launching without this pass is where the 'I forgot to enable webhook signature verification' and 'the backup was actually never running' stories start. Doing it once, ideally a week before launch, gives you time to fix real problems while they're cheap instead of during the first hour of real traffic.
Want to skip doing this by hand?
Fortivibe audits your app for all of the areas these prompts cover (and more).