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Production launch checklist

After you add a new site on Netlify, but before you release it to your customers, consider the following recommendations for getting your project ready for production.

Note that not all recommendations apply to all sites. Some recommendations are specific to when certain features are in use. Also, some recommended tasks can be completed once at the team level and apply to future sites you launch. While your project might not warrant taking action on all the recommendations below, we suggest that you at least review them all to consider which recommended tasks would benefit your business.

Extra benefits for Pro and Enterprise teams

Some of the below recommendations involve features that aren’t available on all plans. Plan requirements are indicated below.

# Finalize names

  • Make any desired edits to your team name and site name before configuring anything else since some configuration values may depend on these slugs.

# Collaborate securely and efficiently

# Pro and Enterprise teams
  • Set up Slack notifications for team awareness of deploy activity.
  • Protect non-production deploys from unauthorized access.
  • Add team members with the minimum level of permissions required for their work to enable collaboration while keeping your sites secure.
    • Add at least one other Team Owner so that while you’re away from work someone else can add team members, set user permissions, transfer sites, and more to keep things running smoothly.
# Enterprise teams only

# Optimize performance and ensure quality

# Pro and Enterprise teams
# Enterprise teams only
  • Integrate content from multiple sources into a single data unification layer with Netlify Connect to ensure your sites and other web properties always have access to the latest content.
  • Use the Connect JavaScript client to query your data layer’s GraphQL API and benefit from efficient caching of data for sites that use server-side rendering (SSR) with caching.
  • Configure Log Drains to pipe data from Netlify’s CDN to third-party monitoring services for analysis, alerting, and data persistence.

# Secure your information

# Pro and Enterprise teams
  • Make variables available to only the scopes that need them for tighter control of your sensitive data.
  • If you have multiple sites, use shared environment variables for non-sensitive values where possible for dev productivity.
# Enterprise teams only
  • Flag your most sensitive environment variable values with Secrets Controller to apply stricter security measures and perform secrets scanning of your code and build output files.
  • Configure Private Connectivity to reduce the risk to your backend environment.

# Prepare for production traffic

# Enterprise teams only
  • Set up Firewall Traffic Rules to permit or block access to your site based on IP address or geographic location.
  • Set up rate limiting rules to protect against API abuse, authentication attacks, and more.
  • If you’re migrating an existing domain you’ve already used, and you have access to premium support, reach out to your dedicated account support team for help working through our Enterprise domain migration launch checklist.
  • If you’re using external DNS, configure your domains to use the High-Performance Edge to benefit from proactive DDoS mitigation and optimize response times and cache hits.
  • If your site will handle HIPAA-regulated data, visit our Trust Center to download our reference architecture for HIPAA-compliant composable sites on Netlify.

# Communicate with customers

# Expect the unexpected

# Pro and Enterprise teams
# Enterprise teams only
  • Familiarize your team with the following tools and resources:
    • Build prioritization to reduce wait times for important builds in your team build queue.
    • If you have Premium Support, your dedicated Slack channel and phone number for support.