Day-One Patch

Every shipped game has a day-one patch. Planning it before launch day prevents chaos. This skill scopes the patch to only what is safe and necessary, gates it through a lightweight QA pass, and ensures a rollback plan exists before anything ships. It is a mini-sprint — not a hotfix, not a full sprint.

When to run:

After the gold master build is locked (cert approved or launch candidate tagged)
When known bugs exist that are too risky to address in the gold master
When cert feedback requires minor fixes post-submission
When a pre-launch playtest surfaces must-fix issues after the release gate passed

Day-one patch scope rules:

Only P1/P2 bugs that are SAFE to fix quickly
No new features — this is fix-only
No refactoring — minimum viable change
Any fix that requires more than 4 hours of dev time belongs in patch 1.1, not day-one

Output:

production/releases/day-one-patch-[version].md

Phase 1: Load Release Context

Read:

```
production/stage.txt
```
— confirm project is in Release stage
The most recent file in
```
production/gate-checks/
```
— read the release gate verdict
```
production/qa/bugs/*.md
```
— load all bugs with Status: Open or Fixed — Pending Verification
```
production/sprints/
```
most recent — understand what shipped
```
production/security/security-audit-*.md
```
most recent — check for any open security items

production/stage.txt

is not

Release

Polish

"Day-one patch prep is for Release-stage projects. Current stage: [stage]. This skill is not appropriate until you are approaching launch."

Phase 2: Scope the Patch

Step 2a — Classify open bugs for patch inclusion

For each open bug, evaluate:

Criterion	Include in day-one?
S1 or S2 severity	Yes — must include if safe to fix
P1 priority	Yes
Fix estimated < 4 hours	Yes
Fix requires architecture change	No — defer to 1.1
Fix introduces new code paths	No — too risky
Fix is data/config only (no code change)	Yes — very low risk
Cert feedback requirement	Yes — required for platform approval
S3/S4 severity	Only if trivial config fix; otherwise defer

Step 2b — Present patch scope to user

Use

AskUserQuestion

Prompt: "Based on open bugs and cert feedback, here is the proposed day-one patch scope. Does this look right?"
Show: table of included bugs (ID, severity, description, estimated effort)
Show: table of deferred bugs (ID, severity, reason deferred)

Options:

[A] Approve this scope

[B] Adjust — I want to add or remove items

[C] No day-one patch needed

If [C]: output "No day-one patch required. Proceed to

/launch-checklist

." Stop.

Step 2c — Check total scope

Sum estimated effort. If total exceeds 1 day of work:

"⚠️ Patch scope is [N hours] — this exceeds a safe day-one window. Consider deferring lower-priority items to patch 1.1. A bloated day-one patch introduces more risk than it removes."

Use

AskUserQuestion

to confirm proceeding or reduce scope.

Phase 3: Rollback Plan

Before any code is written, define the rollback procedure. This is non-negotiable.

Spawn

release-manager

via Task. Ask them to produce a rollback plan covering:

How to revert to the gold master build on each target platform
Platform-specific rollback constraints (some platforms cannot roll back cert builds)
Who is responsible for triggering the rollback
What player communication is required if a rollback occurs

Present the rollback plan. Ask: "May I write this rollback plan to

production/releases/rollback-plan-[version].md

Do not proceed to Phase 4 until the rollback plan is written.

Phase 4: Implement Fixes

For each bug in the approved scope, spawn a focused implementation loop:

Spawn
```
lead-programmer
```
via Task with:
- The bug report (exact reproduction steps and root cause if known)
- The constraint: minimum viable fix only, no cleanup
- The affected files (from bug report Technical Context section)
The lead-programmer implements and runs targeted tests.
Spawn
```
qa-tester
```
via Task to verify: does the bug reproduce after the fix?

For config/data-only fixes: make the change directly (no programmer agent needed). Confirm the value changed and re-run any relevant smoke test.

Phase 5: Patch QA Gate

This is a lightweight QA pass — not a full

/team-qa

. The patch is already QA-approved from the release gate; we are only re-verifying the changed areas.

Spawn

qa-lead

via Task with:

List of all changed files
List of bugs fixed (with verification status from Phase 4)
The smoke check scope for the affected systems

Ask qa-lead to determine: Is a targeted smoke check sufficient, or do any fixes touch systems that require a broader regression?

Run the required QA scope:

Targeted smoke check — run
```
/smoke-check [affected-systems]
```
Broader regression — run targeted tests in
```
tests/unit/
```
and
```
tests/integration/
```
for affected systems

QA verdict must be PASS or PASS WITH WARNINGS before proceeding. If FAIL: scope the failing fix out of the day-one patch and defer to 1.1.

Phase 6: Generate Patch Record

markdown

# Day-One Patch: [Game Name] v[version]

**Date prepared**: [date]
**Target release**: [launch date or "day of launch"]
**Base build**: [gold master tag or commit]
**Patch build**: [patch tag or commit]

---

## Patch Notes (Internal)

### Bugs Fixed
| BUG-ID | Severity | Description | Fix summary |
|--------|----------|-------------|-------------|
| BUG-NNN | S[1-4] | [description] | [one-line fix] |

### Deferred to 1.1
| BUG-ID | Severity | Description | Reason deferred |
|--------|----------|-------------|-----------------|
| BUG-NNN | S[1-4] | [description] | [reason] |

---

## QA Sign-Off

**QA scope**: [Targeted smoke / Broader regression]
**Verdict**: [PASS / PASS WITH WARNINGS]
**QA lead**: qa-lead agent
**Date**: [date]
**Warnings (if any)**: [list or "None"]

---

## Rollback Plan

See: `production/releases/rollback-plan-[version].md`

**Trigger condition**: If [N] or more S1 bugs are reported within [X] hours of launch, execute rollback.
**Rollback owner**: [user / producer]

---

## Approvals Required Before Deploy

- [ ] lead-programmer: all fixes reviewed
- [ ] qa-lead: QA gate PASS confirmed
- [ ] producer: deployment timing approved
- [ ] release-manager: platform submission confirmed

---

## Player-Facing Patch Notes

[Draft for community-manager to review before publishing]

[list player-facing changes in plain language]

Ask: "May I write this patch record to

production/releases/day-one-patch-[version].md

Phase 7: Next Steps

After the patch record is written:

Run
```
/patch-notes
```
to generate the player-facing version of the patch notes
Run
```
/bug-report verify [BUG-ID]
```
for each fixed bug after the patch is live
Run
```
/bug-report close [BUG-ID]
```
for each verified fix
Schedule a post-launch review 48–72 hours after launch using
```
/retrospective launch
```

If any S1 bugs remain open after the patch:

"⚠️ S1 bugs remain open and were not patched. These are accepted risks. Document them in the rollback plan trigger conditions — if they occur at scale, rollback may be preferable to a follow-up patch."

Use

AskUserQuestion

Prompt: "Day-one patch complete. What's next?"