Appready

Appready is a term used in software development to describe the state of an application that has met predefined criteria for deployment and distribution. The concept centers on readiness across code quality, security, performance, and usability, enabling predictable releases and reduced production risk.

Definition and scope: Criteria commonly included are successful automated tests (unit, integration, end-to-end), code coverage thresholds, static and dynamic security scanning, dependency and license checks, artifact packaging and versioning, declarative environment configuration, and up-to-date release notes and documentation. In some definitions, performance and reliability benchmarks or established rollback procedures are required.

Implementation and workflow: In practice, appready status is enforced by CI/CD pipelines that gate promotion of a build to test or production environments. When all criteria are met, a deployment artifact is marked as appready and can be released. Toolchains involved typically include version control systems, continuous integration servers, test suites, security scanners, container registries, and deployment orchestrators.

Variants and usage: Different organizations define their own appready criteria, often aligned with regulatory or domain requirements. Some teams use an explicit appready flag, a badge, or an automated gate in their release workflow; others treat it as a cultural goal rather than a formal state.

History and reception: The term is not a formal standard and has emerged in agile and DevOps discourse to describe release readiness beyond cosmetic packaging. Critics note that without objective, auditable criteria, appready can become marketing jargon rather than a practical standard.

See also: Production readiness, Release management, DevOps, Continuous delivery, Software quality assurance.