A pre-launch checklist for automation pipelines

An automation pipeline that works in testing can still fail quietly in production if it isn't built to handle the messy reality of real data. Here's the checklist we run through before anything ships.

1. What happens on malformed input? Every pipeline needs a defined behavior for rows that don't match the expected shape — skip, flag, or fail loudly. Silent failures are the worst outcome.

2. Is it idempotent? Running the same batch twice shouldn't create duplicate records or double-charge anything downstream.

3. Where does it log? If something goes wrong at 3am, there needs to be a trail that explains what happened without SSH-ing into a server.

4. What's the manual override? Even the best automation needs an escape hatch for the one case nobody anticipated.

5. Who gets notified on failure? A pipeline that fails silently for a week is worse than no pipeline at all.