service-checklist
Shared validation and monitoring checklists for service deployment and upgrades. Referenced by deploy-service and service-upgrade skills.
When & Why to Use This Skill
This Claude skill provides a standardized framework for validating service deployments and upgrades, ensuring operational reliability through comprehensive checklists. It streamlines post-deployment tasks such as Kubernetes pod verification, log monitoring, and Argo CD synchronization, while enforcing best practices for metrics collection, alerting, and observability setup.
Use Cases
- Post-Deployment Validation: Automatically verifying Kubernetes pod health, log integrity, and ingress accessibility immediately after a service release.
- Observability Compliance: Ensuring new services meet monitoring standards by checking for Prometheus metrics endpoints, Grafana dashboards, and active alerting rules.
- Safe Continuous Delivery: Implementing a Human-in-the-Loop workflow to manage Argo CD syncs and Git commits, preventing unauthorized or unvalidated changes.
- Standardizing DevOps SOPs: Providing a shared source of truth for deployment requirements to prevent anti-patterns like parallel upgrades or rushing validation steps.
| name | service-checklist |
|---|---|
| description | Shared validation and monitoring checklists for service deployment and upgrades. Referenced by deploy-service and service-upgrade skills. |
Service Checklist
Shared checklists for service deployment and upgrades.
Deployment Validation
After deploying or upgrading a service:
- Pods running (no CrashLoopBackOff)
- No errors in logs (
kubectl logs -n <namespace> <pod> --tail=100) - Argo CD shows Synced/Healthy
- Ingress accessible (if applicable)
- Dependent services still operational
Monitoring Requirements
After initial deployment or major upgrade:
Metrics Collection
- Service exposes metrics endpoint (usually
/metrics) - Prometheus ServiceMonitor or PodMonitor configured
- Metrics appearing in Prometheus (
up{job="<service>"})
Alerting
- Alert rules for error conditions
- Alert rules for service availability
- Severity levels appropriate (critical/warning)
Dashboards
- Grafana dashboard exists for service
- Key metrics visualized
- Dashboard accessible and working
Health Indicators
- Clear definition of "healthy" state
- Operators can verify service is working
Human-in-the-Loop Workflow
AI Assistant MUST
- ✅ Make file changes
- ✅ Show changes with
git diff - ✅ Stage and commit changes
- ✅ Review Argo CD diff (use
argocd-cliskill) - ✅ Sync after user approval
- ✅ Mark tasks complete in real-time
AI Assistant MUST NOT
- ❌ Push commits (user must
git push) - ❌ Use
git commit --amend - ❌ Rewrite git history
- ❌ Sync without user approval
Anti-Patterns
- ❌ Parallel deployments/upgrades (too many variables)
- ❌ Pushing without user approval
- ❌ Syncing without user approval
- ❌ Rushing validation
- ❌ Skipping monitoring setup