The LLM Production Readiness Checklist I Use Before Shipping Anything

Before I ship any LLM feature to production, I run through this checklist. It takes 20 minutes. It has caught every major incident I've had in the last 18 months. The Checklist 1. Drift & Monitoring [ ] Baseline outputs captured for all prompts [ ] Drift detection running on hourly schedule [ ] Alert thresholds set and tested [ ] Dashboard shows current drift status [ ] Historical drift data accessible 2. Input Validation [ ] Known prompt injection patterns blocked [ ] Input length limits enforced [ ] Special characters handled [ ] Non-text inputs (images, files) have defined limits 3. Output Validation [ ] JSON schema validation in place [ ] String match vs semantic similarity testing done [ ] Format regression tests exist [ ] Fallback behavior defined for malformed output 4. Rate Limiting & Cost Control [ ] Per-user rate limits set [ ] Per-model cost tracking in place [ ] Circuit breaker implemented [ ] Monthly budget alert configured 5. Error Handling [ ] Timeout handling defined (L