Customer.io Production Checklist

Instructions

1. Complete every production gate with an evidence link: workspace/environment, identity, secret scope, consent, event/schema, template review, observability, rate limits, and rollback.
2. Verify the exact production audience and suppression/consent behavior using approved safe checks.
3. Hold release when any data, identity, delivery, or owner gate is unverified.
4. Record the named go/no-go decision and post-deployment observation result.

Output

• A production-readiness receipt with owners, evidence, exceptions, and tested rollback path.

Examples

Before enabling a campaign, validate it in staging with synthetic profiles, confirm the production segment and consent/suppression logic under review, and use an approved canary audience. If the canary differs from expected behavior, stop the launch and restore the previous version rather than widening sends.

Overview

Comprehensive go-live checklist for Customer.io integrations: credentials audit, integration quality review, email deliverability setup, monitoring configuration, smoke tests, and staged rollout plan.

Prerequisites

• Customer.io integration complete and tested in staging
• Production workspace credentials ready
• Sending domain configured and verified

Production Checklist

1. Credentials & Configuration

2. Integration Quality

// scripts/prod-audit.ts
import { TrackClient, RegionUS } from "customerio-node";

async function auditIntegration() {
  const checks: { name: string; pass: boolean; detail: string }[] = [];

  // Check 1: Credentials exist
  const siteId = process.env.CUSTOMERIO_SITE_ID;
  const trackKey = process.env.CUSTOMERIO_TRACK_API_KEY;
  const appKey = process.env.CUSTOMERIO_APP_API_KEY;
  checks.push({
    name: "Track credentials",
    pass: !!(siteId && trackKey),
    detail: siteId ? `Site ID: ${siteId.substring(0, 4)}...` : "MISSING",
  });
  checks.push({
    name: "App API credential",
    pass: !!appKey,
    detail: appKey ? "Set" : "MISSING (needed for transactional)",
  });

  // Check 2: API connectivity
  if (siteId && trackKey) {
    const cio = new TrackClient(siteId, trackKey, { region: RegionUS });
    try {
      await cio.identify("prod-audit-test", {
        email: "prod-audit@example.com",
      });
      await cio.suppress("prod-audit-test");
      checks.push({ name: "Track API", pass: true, detail: "Connected" });
    } catch (err: any) {
      checks.push({
        name: "Track API",
        pass: false,
        detail: `${err.statusCode}: ${err.message}`,
      });
    }
  }

  // Report
  console.log("\n=== Customer.io Production Audit ===\n");
  for (const check of checks) {
    const icon = check.pass ? "PASS" : "FAIL";
    console.log(`[${icon}] ${check.name}: ${check.detail}`);
  }
  const passed = checks.filter((c) => c.pass).length;
  console.log(`\nResult: ${passed}/${checks.length} passed`);
  return checks.every((c) => c.pass);
}

auditIntegration().then((ok) => process.exit(ok ? 0 : 1));

3. Email Deliverability

4. Campaign Readiness

• All campaigns tested with test sends
• Liquid templates render correctly (preview with real data)
• Segment conditions verified with known test users
• Transactional templates have all required message_data fields
• Broadcast triggers tested end-to-end
• Unsubscribe flow tested (click unsubscribe link, verify suppression)

5. Monitoring & Alerting

// Set up these alerts in your monitoring system:
const ALERT_THRESHOLDS = {
  // API health
  api_error_rate: 0.01,       // Alert if > 1% of API calls fail
  api_p99_latency_ms: 5000,   // Alert if p99 > 5 seconds

  // Delivery health
  bounce_rate: 0.05,          // Alert if > 5% bounce rate
  complaint_rate: 0.001,      // Alert if > 0.1% spam complaints
  delivery_rate: 0.95,        // Alert if < 95% delivery rate

  // Operational health
  queue_depth: 10000,         // Alert if event queue > 10K pending
  webhook_error_rate: 0.05,   // Alert if > 5% webhook processing failures
};

6. Smoke Test Script

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

echo "=== Customer.io Production Smoke Test ==="

# Test 1: Track API connectivity
TRACK_STATUS=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -u "${CUSTOMERIO_SITE_ID}:${CUSTOMERIO_TRACK_API_KEY}" \
  -X PUT "https://track.customer.io/api/v1/customers/smoke-test-$(date +%s)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email":"smoke@example.com","_smoke_test":true}')

if [ "$TRACK_STATUS" = "200" ]; then
  echo "[PASS] Track API: HTTP 200"
else
  echo "[FAIL] Track API: HTTP ${TRACK_STATUS}"
  exit 1
fi

# Test 2: App API connectivity
APP_STATUS=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${CUSTOMERIO_APP_API_KEY}" \
  "https://api.customer.io/v1/campaigns")

if [ "$APP_STATUS" = "200" ]; then
  echo "[PASS] App API: HTTP 200"
else
  echo "[FAIL] App API: HTTP ${APP_STATUS}"
  exit 1
fi

echo ""
echo "All smoke tests passed"

7. Staged Rollout Plan

// Feature flag integration for staged rollout
function shouldUseCio(userId: string, rolloutPercent: number): boolean {
  // Deterministic — same user always gets same result
  const hash = createHash("md5").update(userId).digest("hex");
  const bucket = parseInt(hash.substring(0, 8), 16) % 100;
  return bucket < rolloutPercent;
}

Rollback Procedure

1. Set feature flag to 0% (immediate — no deploy needed)
2. Pause all active campaigns in Customer.io dashboard
3. Investigate logs and error reports
4. Fix issue, test in staging
5. Resume staged rollout from 10%

Error Handling

Resources

• Customer.io Email Deliverability
• Sending Domain Setup
• Campaign Best Practices

Next Steps

After production launch, proceed to customerio-upgrade-migration for SDK maintenance.