Software release checklist template
Ship releases the same careful way every time. This checklist takes a feature from agreed requirements to a monitored production release, with the reviews and the go/no-go decision built in.
- 10 steps
- 2 approval steps
- Rename, reorder or remove any step
The 10 steps
- 1
Requirements sign-off Approval
Product owner and stakeholders agree what is in scope for this release.
- 2
Technical design review
Engineers review the approach, data changes and risks before building.
- 3
Development
Build the agreed scope on a feature branch.
- 4
Code review
A second developer reviews every change before it merges.
- 5
QA testing
Test the release candidate against the acceptance criteria and key regressions.
- 6
Security review
Check authentication, data access and dependencies for new risks.
- 7
Go / no-go approval Approval
The release owner decides, with QA and security results in hand.
- 8
Release notes
Write what changed for users and for support.
- 9
Deploy to production
Release, with a rollback plan ready.
- 10
Post-release monitoring
Watch errors, performance and feedback for the first days.