Each item names the owner role, the evidence to collect, and the failure mode it prevents — so the list teaches as it gates.
A target leadership signs and engineering can defend.
Logs, metrics, traces — wired and queryable.
A paging story, not “whoever sees it first.”
You know the breakpoint before you reach it.
Most teams run it once. The best teams keep it open and update it as they learn.
Pre-built — drop in, assign owners, watch items move from red to green.
For teams not on Notion. Same fields, same flow. Google Sheets and Excel.
8-page printable version for whiteboard reviews or hand-off to ops.
Per-item: must-have / should-have / nice-to-have, with explicit launch criteria.
A schedule + facilitator notes for revisiting the list quarterly post-launch.
If something isn’t answered here, ask in your intro email — we keep this list short on purpose.
Yes — that’s the ideal time. Three weeks before launch is when you can still afford to address gaps. Two days before launch is when you discover you can’t.
Yes. Most clients use it as a maturity review every six months — score yourself, prioritize the gaps, knock them down. Trend the score over quarters.
The base list is general. The pack includes notes on which items apply differently for: batch jobs, stateful services, public APIs, customer-facing UIs, and AI features.
The SRE book is the canon. This is what we found we actually use day-to-day after building it for 30+ launches. Less theory, more lists with named owners.
We do bespoke kits, too. Send a paragraph about the problem and we’ll come back inside 48 hours.