Shipping code is easy.
Running it reliably in production is not.
After years of working as a senior software engineer and tech lead across large enterprises and startups, I’ve repeatedly seen the same pattern:
- Systems that work perfectly in development
- MVPs that collapse under real traffic
- Teams reinventing the same production checklists again and again
So I decided to turn that experience into an open-source project:
What Is Production Readiness?
Production Readiness is a curated, opinionated, and practical checklist for engineers who want to ship software that is:
- Observable
- Secure
- Scalable
- Operable
- Maintainable
It is not a theoretical document or a vendor pitch.
It is a hands-on guide based on real production incidents, postmortems, and lessons learned the hard way.
Think of it as:
- A pre-flight checklist before going live
- A review guide for architecture and DevOps decisions
- A shared vocabulary between developers, SREs, and tech leads
Why This Project Exists
Most teams focus heavily on:
- Features
- Velocity
- Frameworks
Far fewer invest early in:
- Observability
- Failure modes
- Operational ownership
- Security defaults
- Cost awareness
The result?
“It worked yesterday. Why is production down?”
This repository aims to close that gap by answering questions like:
- What must be in place before launch?
- What should be automated vs manual?
- What risks are acceptable at each stage?
- What do experienced teams check instinctively — but never write down?
What’s Inside the Repository?
The project is structured into clear, actionable sections, including:
- Architecture & Design Readiness
- Deployment & CI/CD
- Observability (logs, metrics, tracing)
- Security & Access Control
- Reliability & Failure Handling
- Scalability & Performance
- Operations & Incident Response
- Cost & Sustainability
Each item is:
- Concrete (not buzzwords)
- Tool-agnostic where possible
- Suitable for startups and mature systems
Who Is This For?
If you are:
- A senior engineer reviewing systems before launch
- A tech lead setting engineering standards
- A startup founder shipping your first production system
- A DevOps/SRE tired of repeating the same advice
This project is for you.
Even if you disagree with parts of it — that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s designed to spark discussion and improvement.
Open Source & Community-Driven
This is an open-source project, and I want it to grow with the community.
You can contribute by:
- Suggesting missing checklist items
- Sharing real-world lessons learned
- Improving structure or clarity
- Adding examples from different domains (SaaS, IoT, fintech, etc.)
⭐ If you find it useful, please consider giving it a star — it helps the project reach more engineers and signals that this kind of practical knowledge matters.
👉 Repository: https://github.com/chuanjin/production-readiness
Final Thoughts
Production readiness is not a checkbox you tick at the end.
It’s a mindset you build into how you design, develop, and operate software.
My hope is that this project helps teams:
- Fail less catastrophically
- Sleep better after deployments
- Spend more time building value instead of firefighting
If that resonates with you, I’d love your feedback — and your star ⭐.
Thanks for reading.
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