When launching a site, it's important to go through some general quality assurance tasks to ensure the site is functioning and ready to launch.

Security

•  All core and contrib modules updates are applied
•  Give the permissions page a once-over for any glaring issues (e.g., anonymous access to "Full HTML" input format or other such silly thing)
•  Change the user1 username to something other than "admin"
•  Reset the user1 password to something that is definitely secure
•  Delete testing accounts
•  Make sure that only admins can create new accounts
•  Pre-provision the SSL certificates
•  Enforce https (in the pantheon.yml file on pantheon)
•  Anti-spam protection added to forms
•  Comment and contact modules disabled if not necessary
•  Check header security issues: https://dri.es/headers

Pantheon Hosted

•  Make sure the Pantheon APC module is installed: https://www.drupal.org/project/pantheon_advanced_page_cache
•  Check that Varnish is working on the Pantheon Global CDN
•  Make sure SOLR server is connecting, if needed. (not available for basic plan)
•  Check the site audit tab in the site dashboard
•  Pre-provision the SSL certificates
•  Primary domain is set for redirects
•  Enforce https in the pantheon.yml

Non-Pantheon Hosting

•  Configure Cloudflare
•  Set up an external ping to the Drupal cron URL (and then turn off the automated_cron core D8 module?)

Drupal Configuration

•  Site email address is correct at /admin/config/system/site-information
•  Turn off development modules in production (e.g., via Config Split)

Performance

•  Drupal's css and js aggregation enabled
•  Page cache maximum age is set to at least 15 minutes at /admin/config/development/performance
•  Check the headers to make sure caching is working for properly: https://dri.es/headers
•  Fast404 module installed (optional)
•  Redis for Pantheon environments installed (optional)
•  Front End - Page Speed, https://tools.pingdom.com
•  Benchmark the site
•  New Relic
•  Disable themes not in use, even parent themes

Check for errors

•  Review Drupal Status Report Page
•  Review watchdog entries
•  Review pantheon logs
•  Review performance in New Relic
•  Install the Site Audit module and check for issues (or just check the Status tab for the environment in Pantheon)

External Services

•  Google Tag manager has been installed and configured to track Google Analytics (404 and 403 exclusion should be removed from the default configuration so that data goes to analytics).
•  External SMTP service has been configured for sending emails (recommended)
•  Solr server is configured and working (optional)

SEO

•  Domains redirect to primary domain (a dashboard setting in pantheon now)
•  Redirects have been created (clone our Redirects Worksheet template for import)
•  Wildcard redirects have been added to settings.php
•  XMLsitemap module has been configured and a link has been created to: /sitemap.xml
•  Metatag module has been installed and configured
•  Google Console has been registered so the new site can be submitted for reindexing after launch.

Theming

•  /favicon.ico resolves via the favicon module or a rewrite rule in settings.php
•  404 Pages are themed
•  All large images are being resized using responsive image styles
•  Breakpoint indicator is disabled
•  Check that we're not loading unused fonts/weights
•  Optimize bitmap images: http://optimizilla.com, https://compressor.io
•  Optimize SVGs: https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/

Launching

•  Pantheon DNS Configuration
•  Create an annotation in google analytics to demarcate the launch
•  Clear caches
•  Run cron
•  Clear logs before launch
•  Back up everything
•  Create a tag in git for a clear label
•  Announce in Slack
•  Deploy the site through Best Practices

Post Launch

•  Data is coming into analytics
•  Review log for errors
•  Review newrelic for performance
•  Search is working