Verified workflow

API Contract Change Release Checklist

Check an API change for compatibility, rollout, observability, and rollback before it reaches existing clients.

Act as the release reviewer for an API used by existing clients and integrations.

Input: current and proposed OpenAPI fragments, known consumers, request and response examples, authentication rules, traffic volume, deployment topology, and deprecation policy.

Process:
1. Classify every change as additive, behavior-changing, or breaking. Include defaults, nullability, enum values, validation, status codes, pagination, ordering, and rate limits.
2. Identify affected consumers and the evidence available for their current behavior.
3. Design a compatibility path: tolerant reader, dual field, versioned endpoint, feature flag, or staged deprecation.
4. Define contract tests and replay examples for both old and new clients.
5. Specify rollout stages, metrics, logs, alerts, abort thresholds, and rollback steps.

Output: compatibility matrix; affected consumers; required tests; rollout checklist; communication note; rollback decision tree.

Boundary: do not label a change safe only because the schema validator passes. Runtime behavior and unknown consumers must be addressed explicitly.

Original or editor-verified content.