Engineering Stage

ES-110 — Release Readiness

Determine whether the verified system baseline is ready for release, limited pilot, deferral, or rejection based on evidence, risk, defects, governance concerns, and operational expectations.

Verification and Release Preparation Release Evidence Next: ES-111

StageES-110

Estimated Effort1–2 hours per release candidate

InputsTesting and verification evidence

OutputsRelease readiness evidence package

Evidence Familydocs/release/

← Previous Outputs

Current Readiness Gate

Next → Stage Manifest

ES-110 Readiness Gate

Purpose

This readiness gate verifies that ES-110 is complete and ES-111 can begin responsibly.

Operational readiness should not begin until release scope, evidence, risks, defects, guardrails, AI status, release conditions, and release decision are clear.

Completion standard

You are ready to continue when each gate is satisfied or explicitly marked not applicable with rationale.

Gate 1 Release candidate identified

Review Question

Is the release candidate and release type clearly identified?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_candidate_summary.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 2 Evidence indexed

Review Question

Is supporting evidence indexed for review?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_evidence_index.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 3 Defects and risks assessed

Review Question

Are open defects, verification gaps, and release risks assessed?

Required Evidence

docs/release/defect_and_risk_assessment.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 4 Guardrail release review

Review Question

Are guardrail statuses reviewed for the proposed release scope?

Required Evidence

docs/release/guardrail_release_review.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 5 AI release review

Review Question

Is AI release status reviewed and documented?

Required Evidence

docs/release/ai_release_review.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Not applicable ☐ Needs review

Gate 6 Release scope

Review Question

Is release scope explicit, including exclusions, limitations, disabled capabilities, and conditions?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_scope.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 7 Release decision

Review Question

Is the release decision explicit, evidence-backed, and tied to responsible authority?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_decision_record.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 8 Release conditions

Review Question

Are release conditions, limits, monitoring, rollback criteria, or follow-up expectations documented?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_conditions.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 9 Release readiness review

Review Question

Has the release readiness review been completed?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_readiness_review.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Gate 10 Transition readiness

Review Question

Does the readiness summary explain why ES-111 can begin?

Required Evidence

docs/release/release_readiness_summary.md

Status: ☐ Yes ☐ Needs review

Exit criteria

ES-110 is complete when release readiness evidence is sufficient for operational readiness planning to begin.

The release decision must clearly state whether the candidate is released, piloted, deferred, rejected, or conditionally accepted.

If not ready

If ES-110 is not ready, do not move forward by softening the language.

Return to the stage that owns the gap: testing, integration, implementation, design, architecture, or requirements.

Common Pitfall

Do not proceed to ES-111 unless operations knows exactly what is being prepared for.

Engineering Insight

The readiness gate protects operations from inheriting ambiguity disguised as release momentum.

Continue to Stage Manifest

Review the formal ES-110 stage contract and transition to ES-111.

Continue to Stage Manifest →