staging-validation-phase

This skill orchestrates the staging validation phase, which occurs after /ship-staging and before /ship-prod in the staging-prod deployment workflow.

Core responsibilities:

• Run automated smoke tests on staging environment
• Test critical user flows manually (authentication, core features, payments)
• Verify data migrations executed successfully
• Test rollback capability (actual rollback + roll-forward)
• Document sign-off decision (approve/reject with justification)
• Update state.yaml with validation results

Inputs: Staging deployment (URL, deployment ID, migration results) Outputs: Validation report, sign-off decision, state.yaml update Expected duration: 30-60 minutes

<quick_start> Execute staging validation in 5 steps:

1. Run smoke tests - Execute automated smoke test suite on staging URL

   npm run test:smoke -- --url=$STAGING_URL
   

   Verify: homepage loads (200), API health endpoint (200), database connection

2. Test critical user flows - Manual testing of core functionality

   • Authentication (login, logout, password reset)
   • Primary user workflow (feature-specific)
   • Payment processing (if applicable)
   • Data CRUD operations

3. Verify data migrations - Check staging database for migration results

   # Connect to staging database
   psql $STAGING_DATABASE_URL -c "SELECT version FROM alembic_version;"
   # Verify tables, columns, constraints match expectations
   

4. Test rollback capability - Execute actual rollback test

   # Rollback to previous deployment
   vercel rollback $PREVIOUS_DEPLOYMENT_ID
   # Verify previous version is live
   # Roll forward to current deployment
   vercel promote $CURRENT_DEPLOYMENT_ID
   

5. Document sign-off - Update state.yaml

   manual_gates:
     staging_validation:
       status: approved # or rejected
       approver: "Your Name"
       timestamp: "2025-11-19T10:30:00Z"
       blockers: [] # or list of issues if rejected
   

Key principle: Test as if this is production. All failures must be fixed before production deployment. </quick_start>

<knowledge_requirements> Required understanding before validation:

• Smoke tests: What automated tests exist, how to run them, what they verify
• Critical user flows: Which workflows are essential for production (auth, core feature, payments)
• Data migrations: What schema changes were made, how to verify them
• Rollback procedure: How to rollback deployment, how to verify previous version, how to roll forward
• Sign-off criteria: What constitutes approval vs rejection (all tests pass, no blocking bugs)

See deployment-strategy.md in project docs for platform-specific rollback procedures. </knowledge_requirements>