The checklists and system maps I use to scope work, ship releases and roll them out safely. Take what helps your team.
Delivery checklists
The first two lists gate a release: Release Readiness before code leaves the branch, and Rollout Plan before the change reaches users. The rest cover the work before that: reading the ticket, planning the module, and asking the questions that surface hidden risk.
- Release ReadinessA checklist for deciding whether a change is ready to leave the branch.
- Rollout PlanA checklist for moving from merged code to production adoption with guardrails.
- From Ticket to First CommitA practical checklist for clarifying scope, gathering the right context, choosing a plan, and making the first reviewable change.
- Engineering Delivery ChecklistAn eight-phase checklist from task intake to post-rollout review.
- Create a New ModuleA checklist for adding a route, feature module, service module, or reusable component without blurring ownership.
- Senior Engineering QuestionsA compact set of questions covering business, product, domain, API, data, consistency, resilience, security, observability, and rollout.
- AI-Assisted Feature WorkflowA full feature workflow from idea to spec, implementation, review, rollout, and knowledge archive.
System maps
One blueprint covers the full path of a request. When a review needs depth on one zone, I open its focused view: DNS and the edge, runtime and load balancing, storage and coordination, or media processing and fan-out.
- DNS to request pathZoom in on how a domain lookup turns into an edge request with policy checks, request metadata, and response metadata.
- Runtime and load balancingFocus on API gateway handoff, load balancing, frontend servers, CDN edge, backend cluster, dispatcher, and connection state.
- Storage, cache, and coordinationInspect backend write stability, distributed IDs, locks, metadata, primary data, shards, replicas, cold storage, and cache policy.
- Media upload and fan-outTrace raw object chunks through queue validation, workers, encoded storage, and fan-out services such as notification, search, analytics, and payment charge.
AI agent setup
These notes record which AI tool does which job, the order I use them in, and how I set up a new machine for agent work.
- CapturePut facts, source documents, logs, and notes into NotebookLM or a focused Project before asking for judgment.
- ClarifyUse GPT to separate goal, assumptions, constraints, decision, and next action.
- ChallengeUse Claude to review weak assumptions, architecture risk, edge cases, and communication clarity.
- Execute and archiveUse Codex or Antigravity for bounded work, then save the prompt, artifact, verification, and lesson.