Vibe-Coded App Launch Checklist: What to Check Before Going Live

1. Confirm what the app actually depends on

Create a simple inventory of the frontend, backend, database, authentication provider, third-party APIs, storage, email, payments, analytics and hosting. If you cannot explain what a production request touches, you are not ready to operate it confidently.

2. Remove secrets from the codebase

Search the repository for API keys, private tokens, passwords and service credentials. Secrets should live in the hosting provider or environment configuration, not in frontend code, public repositories or committed configuration files.

3. Review authentication and authorization

Do not stop at "users can log in." Check whether users can access records, admin functions, files or API endpoints that belong to somebody else. Authentication answers who someone is; authorization answers what they are allowed to do.

4. Replace mock data and prototype shortcuts

Look for hard-coded users, fake payments, sample API responses, temporary admin accounts, placeholder webhooks and local-only assumptions. A prototype often hides these shortcuts in places the UI makes difficult to notice.

5. Validate every input

Forms, query parameters, uploaded files, URLs and API payloads should be treated as untrusted input. Validate on the server, enforce sensible limits and return safe errors rather than exposing internal details.

6. Test the unhappy paths

Try expired sessions, missing fields, duplicate submissions, failed payments, API timeouts, deleted records, invalid permissions and network interruptions. Production failures rarely follow the happy path shown in the prototype.

7. Check dependencies and deployment configuration

Review package versions, unused dependencies, build commands, environment variables, CORS, HTTPS, domain configuration, error logging and production versus development settings.

8. Add monitoring before users find the problem

At minimum, know how you will discover application errors, failed API calls, broken forms and unusual traffic. A production app without observability can look fine while silently failing.

9. Test mobile, accessibility and performance

AI-generated interfaces can look polished while producing poor keyboard navigation, inconsistent responsive layouts, oversized assets or slow client-side behavior. Test the real experience on phones and slower connections.

10. Create a rollback and backup plan

Know how to restore the database, revert a deployment and recover critical files. A launch is safer when the team already knows what happens if the release goes wrong.

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