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Engineering Deploy Checklist

Pre-deployment verification checklist. Use when about to ship a release, deploying a change with database migrations or feature flags, verifying CI status and approvals before going to production, or documenting rollback triggers ahead of time.

by @anthropics · Apache 2.0 New

What this skill does

Generate a complete safety checklist before launching any new update to ensure every critical step is verified before going live. You will receive a structured plan covering final checks, approvals, and clear rules for undoing changes if something goes wrong. Use this whenever you are about to launch to prevent mistakes and protect your users from unexpected errors.

Anthropic · Development
view on github ↗

name: deploy-checklist description: Pre-deployment verification checklist. Use when about to ship a release, deploying a change with database migrations or feature flags, verifying CI status and approvals before going to production, or documenting rollback triggers ahead of time. argument-hint: “[service or release name]“

/deploy-checklist

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Generate a pre-deployment checklist to verify readiness before shipping.

Usage

/deploy-checklist $ARGUMENTS

Output

## Deploy Checklist: [Service/Release]
**Date:** [Date] | **Deployer:** [Name]

### Pre-Deploy
- [ ] All tests passing in CI
- [ ] Code reviewed and approved
- [ ] No known critical bugs in release
- [ ] Database migrations tested (if applicable)
- [ ] Feature flags configured (if applicable)
- [ ] Rollback plan documented
- [ ] On-call team notified

### Deploy
- [ ] Deploy to staging and verify
- [ ] Run smoke tests
- [ ] Deploy to production (canary if available)
- [ ] Monitor error rates and latency for 15 min
- [ ] Verify key user flows

### Post-Deploy
- [ ] Confirm metrics are nominal
- [ ] Update release notes / changelog
- [ ] Notify stakeholders
- [ ] Close related tickets

### Rollback Triggers
- Error rate exceeds [X]%
- P50 latency exceeds [X]ms
- [Critical user flow] fails

Customization

Tell me about your deploy and I’ll customize the checklist:

  • “We use feature flags” → adds flag verification steps
  • “This includes a database migration” → adds migration-specific checks
  • “This is a breaking API change” → adds consumer notification steps

If Connectors Available

If ~~source control is connected:

  • Pull the release diff and list of changes
  • Verify all PRs are approved and merged

If ~~CI/CD is connected:

  • Check build and test status automatically
  • Verify pipeline is green before deploy

If ~~monitoring is connected:

  • Pre-fill rollback trigger thresholds from current baselines
  • Set up post-deploy metric watch

Tips

  1. Run before every deploy — Even routine ones. Checklists prevent “I forgot to…”
  2. Customize once, reuse — Tell me your stack and I’ll remember your deploy process.
  3. Include rollback criteria — Decide when to roll back before you deploy, not during.

Install this Skill

Skills give your AI agent a consistent, structured approach to this task — better output than a one-off prompt.

npx skills add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill engineering
Download ZIP

Official Anthropic skill. Need a walkthrough? See the install guide →

Works with

No terminal needed — Claude.ai works by pasting the skill into custom instructions.

Details

Category
Development
License
Apache 2.0
Source file
show path engineering/skills/deploy-checklist/SKILL.md
engineering deploy-checklist knowledge-work-plugin