Q3 · Before the rule

Ridgeline Outfitters presents · the rule, and why

One rule: nothing ships without the check

Fear was the expensive part.

The numbers · Q3 before → Q1 after

Incidents per quarter
7 → 1
Rollback time
40 min → 4 min
“Done” claims reversed later
23% → 2%
Checks per deploy
0 → 3
Deploys per week
2 → 9
Nights woken by a pager
6 → 0

Title cards · the principles · click to cut

I
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  1. Done means a check was defined and watched passing — not “it ran”
  2. The check is written before the work, so the work has a finish line
  3. A check nobody can run is not a check
  4. Rollback is rehearsed, not documented
  5. The person who built it is not the person who judges it
  6. Exit code 0 proves the process did not crash — nothing more
  7. Every “blocked” names the exact thing that would unblock it
  8. Anything a client sees gets a second pair of eyes before they do

Narration · the credits roll · hover to pause

Narration

We had seven incidents in a quarter and every one of them had been “done”. Done by whom? By the person who built it, in the moment they stopped typing. The rule replaces that moment with a check: something that fails if the work is wrong, written before the work, watched passing after.

The cost is a few minutes per change. The return is nine deploys a week instead of two, because nobody is afraid of shipping any more. Fear was the expensive part.

rolls at reading speed · pauses on hover

Credits · how to write a check · in order of appearance

Write a check

  1. Say what “wrong” would look like in one sentence.
  2. Write the smallest thing that fails when that happens.
  3. Run it before the work — it must fail.
  4. Do the work. Run it — it must pass.
  5. Put the passing output in the report, not a sentence about it.
five steps · one card each

Ruled grid card · claim, check, who watches

ClaimCheckWho watches
“sync is fixed”lag under 5 min for 1 hops dashboard
“labels print”one printed samplewarehouse lead
“site is fast”94% pages under 2 sweekly probe
“secure”Monday attack runsec report

Typewriter card · the commands

basecamp check define sync-lag --pass "lag < 5m for 60m"
basecamp check run sync-lag            # FAIL (before)  ·  PASS (after)
basecamp deploy --require-checks 3
exit