Originally published at https://tateprograms.com/release-readiness-2026.html .

A lot of repos look finished right before they are published.

The README has a screenshot. The package builds locally. The demo runs once. The launch post is drafted.

That is usually the riskiest moment, because the parts that fail in public are rarely the parts that looked exciting while building. They are the boring edges: install instructions, CI, package metadata, secret handling, publish workflows, screenshots, old config files, and the difference between a demo and something another developer can actually run.

This is the release-readiness checklist I use for JavaScript and TypeScript projects before they go public.

1.…