What's on a Real Launch-Day Checklist for an App I Built With AI?

The day you launch, you need five things to be true before you post the link: your domain loads over HTTPS, payments are in live mode, error tracking is on, you get alerted when the app goes down, and you can roll back a bad deploy in minutes. Everything else is polish. Those five are the difference between a quiet launch and finding out from an angry email that your app has been broken for six hours.

Here is the checklist. Copy it, and tick each box against your real production site, not localhost.

Why launch day catches vibe-coded apps out

Your AI agent built exactly what you asked for, and it works in the preview window. But "works in preview" and "safe to send strangers to" are different jobs. The agent never set up live payments, because you never asked. It never wired an alert to your phone, because a demo does not go down. The gaps are all in the things that only matter once someone who is not you is using the app, and those are precisely the things that are invisible until launch day.

How to check where you stand

Open your live URL in a fresh browser (or incognito, so you are not logged in) and run through this quickly:

1. Does the padlock show, with no "Not Secure" warning? Type the http:// version too. It should redirect to https://.
2. Try to pay with a real card for a small amount. Does money actually move, and does access unlock? Test-mode cards do not count on launch day.
3. Force an error (open a page that does not exist, submit a broken form). Does anything land in an error tracker you can see, or does it vanish?
4. Ask yourself: if the site were down right now, how would you find out? If the honest answer is "a user would tell me," that box is not ticked.

The launch-day checklist

Work top to bottom. Do not skip a box because it "probably works."

1. Domain and HTTPS live. Your custom domain resolves and serves over HTTPS with a valid certificate, and http:// redirects to https://. See why does my site say Not Secure if the padlock is missing.
2. Payments in live mode. Stripe (or your processor) is switched from test to live, live API keys are set in production, and the webhook points at your live URL and is verified. Run one real payment end to end, then refund yourself. How to test Stripe before launch covers this properly.
3. Environment variables set in production. Every key the app needs exists in the production environment, not just your laptop. Secrets are server-side, never in the browser bundle.
4. Error tracking on. A tool like Sentry is catching server and browser errors from production, and you have confirmed a test error shows up in the dashboard.
5. Uptime alerts wired to you. An external monitor pings your site every few minutes and messages your phone or email when it fails. Set this up via how do I get alerted when my app goes down.
6. A rollback plan you have tested. You know the exact steps to revert to the last good deploy, and you have done it once so it is not new under pressure. How to roll back a bad deploy walks through it.
7. No test and demo data in the database. Seed rows, lorem ipsum, and your own throwaway accounts are cleared out.
8. A way to close the door. An invite code or waitlist gate, so you control how many people arrive at once rather than finding out your app breaks at user number twelve.

The trap to avoid

The common wrong move is to treat launch as a single "go live" button and assume the platform handles the rest. It does not. Deploying to Vercel or your host of choice publishes your code; it does not switch Stripe to live mode, it does not turn on error tracking, and it does not tell you when the site is down. Each box above is a separate deliberate step. Ticking "I deployed" is not ticking the list.

Where this fits

This checklist is the short version of being beta-ready: the app keeps working when real people, real cards, and real mistakes hit it. If you want the list run against your actual project rather than a generic one, the free Readiness Report has your own agent check each item on your live site and tell you which boxes genuinely pass. If you would rather have the gaps fixed in order and handed back to you, that is the Finishing Pass. Either way, start with how do I know if my app is ready to launch and work down.