Pre-Change Checklist

Checklist discipline. Every item is meant to be answered yes / no with evidence. Items marked critical are non-negotiable; items marked warn are judgement calls; items marked info are baseline expectations.

Items

• Change ticket open, change owner identified, change window current (severity: critical)
• Change is peer-reviewed (severity: critical)
• Blast radius identified and confirmed acceptable (severity: critical)
• Out-of-band access (console / serial / IPMI) tested (severity: critical)
• Pre-change state captured (configuration + operational) (severity: critical)
• Rollback plan documented and tested where possible (severity: critical)
• Stakeholders notified (severity: warn)
• Maintenance window / change window scheduled (severity: info)
• Backup of current configuration taken off-router (severity: critical)
• Validation commands pre-defined (severity: info)
• Communication channel open (war-room / chat / ticket) (severity: warn)

Severity legend

• info: baseline expectation
• warn: judgement call; production-grade depends on context
• critical: non-negotiable; a missed critical item is a release blocker

Evidence retention

The completed checklist is evidence for the change ticket, the audit, and the post-incident review. Store it where it can be recovered if the router is lost.