Plan guardrails before the window
Freeze risky deploys 24 hours before the change and ensure rollback is scripted and tested.
Tag Watch.Dog monitors that must stay green during maintenance and set expectations for muted ones.
If you cannot explain how to undo the change in five minutes, you are not ready for the window.
Tell customers what to expect
Schedule the window on your status page with timezone clarity and a simple risk statement.
Automate reminders to customers and on-call so everyone sees the same source of truth.
Communication checklist
- Pre-announcement 72 hours out
- Reminder 1 hour before
- Real-time updates during the window
- Closure note with what changed
Keep monitors alive during change
Run synthetic checks against backup paths while primary systems are drained.
Use short-lived suppression in Watch.Dog instead of disabling alerts entirely, so unexpected issues still page you.