Release Freeze Change Control Review

Use this skill to convert release freeze, change control, blackout window, holiday freeze, critical hotfix, compliance freeze, app-store deadline, customer blackout, infrastructure freeze, and freeze exception questions into a concrete artifact with owners, gates, metrics, and recovery paths.

Workflow

1. Identify freeze window, protected systems, change request, severity, customer impact, risk tier, approval authority, evidence, rollback plan, monitoring signals, communication plan, and expiry/review owner.
2. Read references/release-freeze-change-control-patterns.md.
3. Classify the situation as planned freeze, emergency hotfix, security patch, store deadline exception, customer-specific blackout, infrastructure freeze, incident-recovery change, or compliance freeze override.
4. Define freeze policy, intake fields, severity ladder, approval matrix, permitted changes, evidence requirements, rollout/rollback guardrails, comms, monitoring, exception register, and post-freeze review.
5. Produce release freeze change-control review, state machine, decision table, event schema, freeze checklist, exception register, and post-freeze learning plan.

When not to use

• Do not use when the job belongs to release-readiness-exception-board-review — Exception board for unmet launch gates. Absorbed release-risk-exception-review patterns.
• Do not use when the job belongs to release-readiness-exception-board-review — Defer when the job matches release-readiness-exception-board-review instead.
• Do not use for generic advice the base model already handles without this skill's specific artifact contract.

Guardrails