Skip to content

Engineering SDLC Playbook

This playbook is the organization's single set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for how we plan, build, test, ship, and support software. It is tool-agnostic at the process layer, so it applies regardless of product, language, or stack. Concrete examples use common conventions (JIRA for tracking, Git for version control, semantic versioning) as illustrations; the underlying rules are the standard everyone follows.

Start here

  • Follow the lifecycle

    The twelve-phase spine, from a backlog item through to production support.

    Open the lifecycle

  • Find your role

    What your role does across the SOPs, and the best place to jump in.

    Find your role

  • Grab a template

    PR, Build Ticket, impact analysis, test plan, runbook, and more.

    Open templates

The lifecycle at a glance

The lifecycle is a loop, not a straight line: QA and defect handling cycle until a build is clean, and post-production monitoring feeds back into support, hotfixes, and escaped-defect analysis.

flowchart TD
    A[1. Backlog & Grooming] --> B[2. Planning & Estimation]
    B --> C[3. Branching & Version Control]
    C --> D[4. Development & Code Review]
    D --> E[5. Build & Release Freeze]
    E --> F[6. QA & Testing]
    F -->|defects found| G[7. Defect Handling]
    G --> F
    F -->|QA go-ahead| H[8. Tagging & Deployment]
    H --> I[9. Release Close-out]
    H --> K[11. Post-Production Monitoring]
    K -->|incident| L[12. Production Support]
    L -->|urgent prod fix| M[10. Hotfix]
    M --> H
    K -->|escaped defect| N[Escaped Defects Analysis]

Jump to a phase

Each phase is its own SOP page: a summary card first (what it is, who owns it, when it triggers), then full detail with a worked example, a Mermaid diagram, and the templates it uses.

Beyond the per-release flow, see the Recurring Processes (ceremonies, monthly retrospective, escaped-defects analysis) and the Standards that apply across every phase (AI-assisted development, JIRA and release management, versioning, documentation).

Find your role

Roles describe responsibility within the SOPs. Find yours, then jump straight in. Full detail is on the Roles and Responsibilities page; accountability per phase is in the RACI matrix.

Role You mainly own Jump in
Engineering Branching, development, code review, builds, fixes, monitoring. Branching & Version Control
QA Acceptance gates, impact analysis, sanity / smoke / regression. QA & Testing
Project Management Ceremonies, tracker hygiene, coordination, process adherence. Agile Ceremonies
Product Backlog, priorities, acceptance criteria, sign-off. Backlog & Grooming
DevOps Builds, environments, deployments, infrastructure. Build & Release Freeze
Support Client-facing triage, escalation, SLAs. Production Support
Leadership Direction, sign-off, accountability, monitoring oversight. Escaped Defects Analysis

How to read a process page

Every SOP page follows the same shape, so it works as both a quick refresher and the full reference:

  1. Summary card at the top: what the process is, who owns it by role, and when it triggers. Read this if you only need a reminder.
  2. Full detail below: the complete procedure with a worked example, a Mermaid diagram of the flow, and any template you need to execute it.

Conventions used throughout

  • MUST / SHOULD / MAY carry their normal meaning. MUST is a hard rule, SHOULD is a strong default that needs a stated reason to skip, MAY is optional.
  • Roles are referenced by title, never by individual name. The current people behind each role live in Current Owners, kept out of the process pages.
  • Branch and version examples use placeholder ticket keys such as ABC-1234 and versions such as v1.3.0.

Keeping the playbook current

This is a living document, maintained the same way code is: changes are proposed through merge requests, reviewed, and merged, so the Git history is the change log. When a process changes in practice, the page changes in the same cycle. Process deviations are raised in the Monthly Retrospective and reflected back into these pages.