Releaseready

Releaseready is a designation used in software development and related fields to indicate that a product, feature, or update is prepared for release to users. It implies that the item has passed predefined criteria and is approved by the relevant stakeholders to be deployed, published, or distributed.

Criteria often encompass functional readiness (implemented features behave as specified), quality attributes (low defect density, adequate test coverage), security and privacy reviews, compliance with applicable laws and licenses, performance and reliability benchmarks, localization and accessibility readiness, and complete user documentation. Dependency management, environment configuration, and rollback plans may also be included. Alternative spellings such as release-ready may be encountered in practice, but releaseready is used in some frameworks and tooling.

The process typically involves release planning and gate reviews, automated and manual testing, build verification, and sign-off from product, engineering, QA, security, and operations teams. Release pipelines may incorporate deployment strategies such as canaries, feature flags, or blue-green deployments, and may require canary or limited-scope releases before full rollout.

Measurement and governance: Release readiness is a status that can be monitored with metrics such as test pass rate, defect escape rate, deployment success rate, time-to-fix for critical issues, and post-release monitoring. Even when marked releaseready, releases carry residual risk and may be rolled back or hotfixed if necessary.

Scope and use: Releaseready applies to software updates, applications, services, firmware, and content packages. It is a product-management concept used to coordinate cross-functional teams and ensure a stable, supported release. The specifics of what constitutes releaseready vary by organization and project.