Release Testing Workflow

release-testing-workflow

prompts/

When to Use

• User mentions release testing, Go/No-Go, or release readiness
• Need timeline: T-14 planning → T-7 feature freeze → T-5–T-4 specialized testing → T-3 RC → T-2 quality assessment → T-1 Go/No-Go → T-day release → T+1–T+7 post-release
• Trigger: e.g. “How do we schedule pre-release testing?” or “Go/No-Go checklist”

How to Use the Prompts

prompts/

Common Pitfalls

• ❌ Adding features after T-7 → ✅ Feature freeze: only defect fixes; non-critical code freeze
• ❌ Releasing without Go/No-Go → ✅ Release only after gates pass, team alignment, and rollback readiness
• ❌ No post-release monitoring → ✅ T+1 intensive monitoring and fast response; follow incident procedures

Best Practices

• T-14: use test strategy and requirements prompts for release plan and risk assessment
• T-2: use test reporting and test strategy for quality gates and known-issue assessment
• Before deploy: confirm rollback tested, communication plan and support brief ready
• Principle: When in doubt, delay release.

Reference Files

• reference.md — Step-to-prompt file mapping
• prompts/ — English prompt files for this workflow (open the matching

  .md

  per step and use with context)

T-14: Release Planning

☑️ Planning Meeting Checklist

• Meeting preparation
  • Confirm participants (Product, Engineering, QA, DevOps)
  • Prepare meeting agenda
  • Use prompts: test-strategy, requirements-analysis
• Meeting agenda execution
  • Define release scope
  • Identify high-risk features
  • Define quality gates
  • Develop test strategy

☑️ Deliverables Completion Checklist

• Documentation delivery
  • Release test plan
  • Risk assessment document
  • Environment plan
  • Regression test scope
  • Performance test plan

T-10 to T-8: Test Preparation

☑️ Environment Preparation Checklist

• Test environment setup
  • Set up pre-production environment
  • Prepare production-like data
  • Configure monitoring and logging
  • Create test accounts
  • Use prompts: automation-testing, test-strategy

☑️ Test Suite Update Checklist

• Test suite updates
  • Update regression test suite
  • Update performance test scripts
  • Update security test scenarios
  • Update accessibility tests
  • Update visual test baselines

☑️ Readiness Verification Checklist

• Readiness validation
  • Critical path automation ready
  • Regression tests updated
  • Performance test baseline set
  • Visual test baseline set

T-7: Feature Freeze & Testing Acceleration

☑️ Feature Freeze Rules Confirmation

• Freeze rules enforcement
  • Confirm no new features added
  • Only allow defect fixes
  • Non-critical code freeze

☑️ Functional Testing Checklist

• New feature testing
  • Test new features
  • Test modified features
  • Test critical user journeys
  • Test integration points
  • Use prompts: functional-testing, test-case-writing

☑️ Regression Testing Checklist

• Full regression execution
  • Execute full automated regression
  • Execute critical path manual tests
  • Cross-browser testing
  • Mobile testing
  • Use prompts: functional-testing, ai-assisted-testing

☑️ End-to-End Testing Checklist

• E2E test execution
  • Test complete user journeys
  • Test multi-system integration
  • Verify data flows
  • Test third-party integrations
  • Use prompts: functional-testing

T-5 to T-4: Specialized Testing

☑️ Performance Testing Checklist

• Performance test execution
  • Load testing
  • Stress testing
  • Spike testing
  • Endurance testing (24h+)
  • Use prompts: performance-testing
• Performance metrics analysis
  • Analyze P95/P99 response times
  • Check throughput
  • Analyze error rates
  • Monitor resource usage

☑️ Security Testing Checklist

• Security test execution
  • Vulnerability scanning
  • Penetration testing
  • Authentication/authorization testing
  • Encryption verification
  • Security headers check
  • Use prompts: security-testing

☑️ Accessibility Testing Checklist

• Accessibility test execution
  • Screen reader testing
  • Keyboard navigation testing
  • Contrast checking
  • ARIA attribute verification
  • Use prompts: accessibility-testing

☑️ Visual Testing Checklist

• Visual test execution
  • Visual regression testing
  • Cross-browser visual testing
  • Responsive design testing
  • UI consistency checking
  • Use prompts: accessibility-testing

T-3: Release Candidate (RC) Testing

☑️ RC Deployment Checklist

• Release candidate preparation
  • Deploy RC to pre-production
  • Code freeze
  • Tag version

☑️ Smoke Testing Checklist

• Quick smoke test (1–2 hours)
  • Test critical features
  • Confirm no critical defects
  • Verify deployment success

☑️ Final Regression Checklist

• Full regression execution
  • Execute full automated regression
  • Execute manual critical path tests
  • Execute exploratory testing
  • Use prompts: manual-testing

☑️ Defect Triage Checklist

• Defect handling decisions
  • Critical defects: must fix → retest → new RC
  • High priority: assess risk
  • Medium/low priority: move to next version

T-2: Quality Assessment

☑️ Quality Metrics Review Checklist

• Test metrics review
  • Test execution rate
  • Test pass rate
  • Critical/high priority defect count
  • Test coverage
  • Performance benchmark achievement
  • Use prompts: test-reporting, test-strategy

☑️ Quality Gate Check Checklist

• Gate verification
  • Critical defects fixed
  • Regression tests 100% passed
  • Performance meets SLA
  • Security scan passed
  • No unresolved P1/P2 defects
  • Accessibility compliance

☑️ Risk Assessment Checklist

• Risk analysis
  • Known issues and workarounds
  • Load test performance
  • Third-party dependency risks
  • Rollback plan readiness

T-1: Go/No-Go

☑️ Go/No-Go Meeting Checklist

• Meeting preparation
  • Confirm participants (Product, Engineering, QA, DevOps, Leadership)
  • Prepare meeting materials
• Meeting review content
  • Test summary
  • Defect status and trends
  • Performance test results
  • Security test results
  • Known risks
  • Rollback plan

☑️ GO Decision Criteria Check

• GO conditions verification
  • Quality gates passed
  • No critical unresolved defects
  • Performance acceptable
  • Team confident
  • Rollback plan ready

☑️ NO-GO Risk Identification

• NO-GO conditions check
  • Are there critical defects
  • Did quality gates fail
  • Are there performance issues
  • Are there high risks
  • Does team lack confidence

☑️ Pre-Release Checklist

• Release preparation verification
  • Release notes prepared
  • Deployment runbook ready
  • Monitoring configured
  • Rollback plan tested
  • Support team briefed
  • Communication plan ready

T-Day: Release Day

☑️ Pre-Deployment Checklist (2–4 hours before)

• Final preparation
  • RC final smoke test
  • Deployment checklist confirmation
  • Team on-call confirmation
  • Communication channels ready

☑️ During Deployment Monitoring Checklist

• Real-time monitoring
  • Monitor deployment progress
  • Monitor error logs
  • Monitor performance metrics
  • Monitor user feedback

☑️ Post-Deployment Verification Checklist (30–60 min)

• Production smoke test
  • Test critical user journeys
  • Verify authentication/authorization
  • Test payment functionality
  • Verify third-party integrations
  • Check performance

☑️ First 24 Hours Monitoring Checklist

• Continuous monitoring
  • Monitor error rate
  • Monitor response time
  • Monitor traffic
  • Monitor support tickets

☑️ Rollback Conditions Check

• Rollback trigger conditions
  • Is critical functionality broken
  • Is there severe performance degradation
  • Is there data corruption
  • Are there security vulnerabilities

T+1 to T+7: Post-Release

☑️ Day 1 Checklist

• Intensive monitoring
  • Intensive system metrics monitoring
  • Fast issue response
  • Collect user feedback
  • Record discovered issues

☑️ Week 1 Checklist

• Continuous tracking
  • Fix post-release defects
  • Monitor trend changes
  • Collect user feedback
  • Prepare hotfix if necessary

☑️ Release Retrospective Checklist

• Retrospective meeting
  • Discuss what went well
  • Identify improvement opportunities
  • Analyze testing gaps
  • Create process improvement plan
  • Use prompts: test-reporting