Release Readiness Harness

Purpose

Prevent agents from treating a passing test suite as the whole release decision.

Inspect First

• release docs, CI/CD workflows, deployment config, smoke tests, migrations, changelog, version files, rollback docs, and observability diagnostics

Procedure

1. Define readiness.

   • Full validation evidence from ./scripts/validate or documented equivalent.
   • Fast smoke tests that prove the release/runtime can start and answer a minimal health or user-flow check.
   • Migration status.
   • Rollback plan.
   • Monitoring or diagnostics.
   • Known risks.

2. Add release assets.

   • docs/release/checklist.md
   • docs/release/rollback.md
   • scripts/smoke-test where feasible; keep it fast and runtime/deployment-focused, not a default alias for full ./scripts/validate.
   • Select a stack-aware smoke pattern when useful:
     • web app: request the base URL or one minimal browser smoke path.
     • API service: request /health or the configured health endpoint.
     • database-backed app: check database readiness plus migration status.
     • library/package: run a fast import/build sanity check.
   • CHANGELOG.md when the project uses changelogs or the user asks.

3. Wire checks.

   • Coordinate with ci-cd-harness for deployment gates.
   • Coordinate with migration-and-schema-harness for migration risk.
   • Coordinate with termination-gatekeeper so release readiness is not claimed before task completion evidence exists.

Validation

• Run ./scripts/smoke-test when present.
• Run or cite full ./scripts/validate separately from smoke evidence.
• Confirm rollback steps are concrete.
• Confirm release docs cite validation commands.

Completion Criteria

• A release has explicit readiness, smoke, rollback, and verification criteria.