Deployment readiness review
The DRR every release ships against, made public
Releases that move money cannot rely on hope. This is the actual 41-item checklist our engineers run before traffic — required items block, recommended items page the author.
Checklist items
41
34 required · 7 recommended
Median DRR pass time
22 min
Across 312 releases in 2026
Releases blocked (90d)
14
Of 187 attempts
Evidence retention
2 years
Auditor-grade, on /trust-ledger
Tests
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-01 | Unit tests ≥ 90% lines on changed packages | Required |
| DRR-02 | Integration tests pass against staging | Required |
| DRR-03 | Policy tests pass on /policy-tests | Required |
| DRR-04 | Tenant-isolation tests rerun, all green | Required |
| DRR-05 | Performance budget regression ≤ 5% | Required |
Schema
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-06 | DB migration is forward-only and backward-compatible | Required |
| DRR-07 | Read paths tolerate both schema versions | Required |
| DRR-08 | Rollback plan attached | Required |
| DRR-09 | Large backfills run in batches with rate cap | Recommended |
Security
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-10 | SBOM diff reviewed; no new critical CVEs | Required |
| DRR-11 | Secrets rotated if scoped to this release | Required |
| DRR-12 | AuthZ changes reviewed by /decision-rights owner | Required |
| DRR-13 | Threat model updated for new surfaces | Recommended |
Privacy
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-14 | ROPA updated if personal data flows changed | Required |
| DRR-15 | Retention schedule rechecked | Recommended |
Resilience
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-16 | RTO / RPO unchanged or improved | Required |
| DRR-17 | Kill switch wired for new feature | Required |
| DRR-18 | Quotas + rate limits set on new endpoints | Required |
Observability
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-19 | SLOs defined; burn-rate alerts wired | Required |
| DRR-20 | Trace headers propagate across boundary | Required |
| DRR-21 | Audit events emitted on writes | Required |
| DRR-22 | Error budget headroom > 25% | Required |
Release
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-23 | Feature flag default OFF in production | Required |
| DRR-24 | Canary rollout plan: 1% → 10% → 50% → 100% | Required |
| DRR-25 | Auto-rollback on burn-rate or error spike | Required |
Customer
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-26 | Customer-visible change announced ≥ 30 days prior | Required |
| DRR-27 | Breaking-change marker absent or scheduled per /api-stability | Required |
| DRR-28 | Status page entry prepared | Recommended |
Cost
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-29 | Unit-cost delta within ±3% of baseline | Required |
| DRR-30 | Cache hit ratio not regressed | Recommended |
Operations
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-31 | Runbook updated for new alerts | Required |
| DRR-32 | On-call briefed via DRR readout | Required |
| DRR-33 | Tabletop entry if SEV-1 surface changes | Recommended |
Treasury
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-34 | Payout corridor tests green if treasury touched | Required |
| DRR-35 | Reconciliation rules updated if ledger changed | Required |
Docs
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-36 | Public docs updated | Required |
| DRR-37 | Changelog drafted in plural-imperative | Required |
Compliance
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-38 | Control mapping refreshed if applicable | Required |
| DRR-39 | DPIA refreshed for high-risk processing | Recommended |
Approvals
| ID | Item | Status |
|---|---|---|
| DRR-40 | Two-person review on PR | Required |
| DRR-41 | CAB sign-off on /change-advisory if blast radius > medium | Required |
How the checklist is enforced
- The CI/CD pipeline requires every Required item to be ticked with an evidence link. Tick-without-link fails the build.
- Recommended items page the author within 24h; a Recommended skipped twice escalates to engineering manager.
- Audit evidence is preserved on /trust-ledger for two years; auditors verify it during /attestations.
- Changes to the checklist are themselves diffs on /policy-diffs, reviewed by Engineering, SRE, Security, and Compliance.