The Weekend Deploy Checklist for Indie Hackers

Why weekend deploys are risky

Weekend deploys mean you're not at your sharpest, you might not check things as carefully, and if something breaks you have less energy to fix it. But indie hackers ship on weekends — it's when we have time.

Before deploying

• ☐ Error monitoring is active (check ProdFix for current error baseline)
• ☐ You can roll back in under 2 minutes
• ☐ Change is a single feature or fix (not a big combined deploy)
• ☐ Tested with a fresh/incognito browser window
• ☐ Alerts will reach you (phone notifications on)

After deploying

• ☐ Watch error dashboard for 15 minutes
• ☐ Test the deployed feature as a real user
• ☐ Check that Core Web Vitals haven't regressed
• ☐ Verify critical flows (signup, login, core feature) still work

The golden rule

Never deploy Friday afternoon or late Sunday night. Friday: you won't fix it until Monday. Sunday night: you'll fix it at midnight or let users wake up to a broken app. Best weekend deploy time: Saturday morning, so you have the whole day to monitor and fix.