release-plan

Plan a release for $ARGUMENTS.

Release Planning Process (6 steps — sequential, do not skip)

The cardinal rule: every release is reversible, communicated, and gated. No release ships without passing all gates, having a rollback plan, and briefing support. Pressure does not override process.

Step 1: Define Release Scope

Identify everything included in this release:

1. List changes since last release — use git log to enumerate:

   git log --oneline --no-merges <last-release-tag>..HEAD
   

2. Categorise each change:

   Category	Includes
   Features	New user-facing capabilities
   Enhancements	Improvements to existing features
   Bug fixes	Corrections to existing behaviour
   Infrastructure	CI/CD, deployment, config changes
   Migrations	Database schema changes, data migrations
   Security	Auth changes, dependency patches, vulnerability fixes

3. Identify dependencies — does any change depend on a migration, config change, feature flag, or external service deployment?

4. Flag risks — which changes have the widest blast radius? Which touch auth, payments, or data?

5. Confirm scope with product — the release manager does not decide what ships. Confirm the scope matches what the product owner approved

Step 2: Readiness Assessment (MANDATORY — every gate checked)

Evaluate every gate. A skipped gate is a failed gate.

Engineering gates:

• All items meet Definition of Done (code complete, tests pass, reviewed, docs updated)
• Verification tests pass in staging (full acceptance suite, exit 0)
• No open critical or high-severity bugs in this release
• Security review completed for auth/data changes (CVSS scores assessed)
• Database migrations tested in staging (with rollback verified)
• Performance benchmarks met (no regression from baseline)

Operational gates:

• Rollback plan documented and tested
• Monitoring and alerts in place for key metrics
• Support team briefed (FAQ, known issues, escalation paths)
• Release notes drafted (user-facing and internal)

Communication gates:

• Customer communication prepared (if user-facing changes)
• Documentation updated (user docs, API docs, changelog)
• GTM team notified (if launch activities are planned)

Rules:

• Check each gate by reading actual evidence (test output, review comments, migration logs) — not by asking "did someone do this?"
• A gate without evidence is a gate that has not passed
• If a gate is genuinely not applicable (e.g., no migrations in this release), mark it N/A with reasoning

Step 3: Select Deployment Strategy

Choose a strategy based on the release content and risk profile:

Strategy	When	Risk	Rollback speed
Feature flag	New features, uncertain impact	Lowest	Instant (toggle off)
Percentage rollout	User-facing changes, want to monitor	Low	Fast (reduce to 0%)
Blue/green	Infrastructure changes, zero-downtime required	Low	Fast (switch traffic)
Canary	High-risk changes, need real traffic validation	Medium	Moderate (redirect traffic)
Big bang	Small changes, internal tools, low risk	Higher	Slow (full redeploy)

Default to feature flags for user-facing changes. Big bang only for low-risk internal changes.

If multiple strategies apply to different parts of the release, combine them. A release can use feature flags for user-facing features and big bang for internal tooling changes simultaneously.

Step 4: Define Rollback Criteria

Define BEFORE deployment what triggers a rollback. These are non-negotiable:

Signal	Threshold	Action
Error rate	>2x baseline for 5 minutes	Automatic rollback
p95 latency	>3x baseline for 5 minutes	Investigate, rollback if not resolving
Support ticket spike	>3x normal rate within 1 hour	Investigate, rollback if product-related
Health check failures	Any health endpoint returning non-200	Immediate rollback
Data integrity	Any data corruption signal	Immediate rollback + incident response

Rules:

• Record current baseline values for each metric BEFORE deployment
• Specify which rollback mechanism applies (feature flag toggle, traffic switch, full redeploy)
• Assign a rollback owner who has the authority and access to execute
• Test the rollback mechanism before you need it

Step 5: Communication Plan

Identify who needs to know what and when:

Audience	What they need	When	Channel
Support team	FAQ, known issues, escalation paths, expected behaviour changes	Before deployment	Briefing + document
Engineering	Deploy time, what to monitor, rollback plan, on-call expectations	Before deployment	Team channel
GTM / Marketing	Feature availability, timing for announcements, any launch coordination	Before deployment	Coordination meeting
Customers	What changed, what they need to do (if anything), where to get help	After deployment verified stable	Release notes / email / in-app
Leadership	Release summary, risk assessment, go/no-go decision	Before deployment	Status update

Rules:

• Support is briefed BEFORE deployment, never after
• Customer communication goes out AFTER deployment is verified stable, never before
• Internal engineering notification includes the rollback plan and on-call contact

Step 6: Go/No-Go Decision

Make the call based on gates and evidence:

GO: All engineering, operational, and communication gates pass. Rollback plan verified. Team available to monitor post-deployment.

NO-GO: Any engineering gate fails. No rollback plan. Support team not briefed. Deploying into a known-bad state (existing incident in progress).

CONDITIONAL GO: Some non-engineering gates have known acceptable risks. Document the risk, get CTO approval, proceed with enhanced monitoring. Engineering gate failures are never conditionally acceptable.

Anti-Patterns (NEVER do these)

• Releasing without a rollback plan — if you cannot reverse it, you cannot ship it. A rollback plan designed during an incident is a rollback plan that fails
• Skipping support briefing — support will be blindsided by customer questions. They are the first line of defence and need answers ready
• Bundling hotfixes with feature releases — hotfixes are minimal and urgent. Combining them with a feature release defeats the purpose of both
• Deploying during an active incident — deploying into a known-bad state compounds risk. Wait for resolution
• Overriding gates under pressure — time pressure does not make failing tests pass. If it is not ready, it is not ready
• "We'll write the release notes later" — release notes written after the fact are incomplete. Draft them during planning when context is fresh

Output

Deliver a release plan in this format:

## Release: [version/name]

### Scope
| Change | Category | Risk | PRs |
|---|---|---|---|
| [description] | Feature/Fix/Infra | Low/Med/High | #123 |

### Readiness
| Gate | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Tests pass | PASS/FAIL | [command + exit code] |
| Security review | PASS/FAIL/N/A | [reviewer + date] |
| Migrations tested | PASS/FAIL/N/A | [staging verification] |
| Performance baseline | PASS/FAIL | [benchmark results] |
| Rollback tested | PASS/FAIL | [method + verification] |
| Support briefed | PASS/FAIL | [date + document link] |
| Docs updated | PASS/FAIL/N/A | [what was updated] |

### Strategy: [Feature flag / Percentage rollout / Blue-green / Canary / Big bang]
Reasoning: [why this strategy fits this release]

### Rollback Criteria
| Signal | Current baseline | Threshold | Action | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Error rate | [value] | >2x for 5 min | Automatic rollback | [name] |
| p95 latency | [value] | >3x for 5 min | Investigate + rollback | [name] |

### Communication
| Audience | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Support | Briefed/Pending | [date] |
| Engineering | Notified/Pending | [date] |
| Customers | Drafted/Pending | [date] |

### Decision: [GO / NO-GO / CONDITIONAL GO]
Reasoning: [why, citing gate results]

Related Skills

• /release-manager:rollback-assessment — before releasing, define the rollback plan. Every release plan should have a corresponding rollback assessment.

Track DORA metrics across releases: deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and time to restore. These are the industry-standard measures of release process health.

Use the release checklist template (templates/release-checklist.md) and rollback plan template (templates/rollback-plan.md) for consistent output structure.