Checklists

You can add checklist items to any step in Runway to cover any unique parts of your team's release process.

A step won't be marked as complete (green) in Runway until all checklist items have been completed -- in addition to the normal criteria that would mark a step as completed.

When a checklist item is marked as completed, Runway will keep track of when the status changed, and who updated it.

For example, you might need to send an email to the VP of Product every time a new release gets kicked off.

Creating a checklist item called "Email Helen" on the Kickoff step will document this as a part of your release process, and gives your team a way to indicate that the task has been completed for each release.

'Ping pending' actions

When items belonging to a checklist are still pending, you can use the "Ping" action behind the ... icon for an individual item to send a Slack or Teams message to the checklist item owner, or the “Ping all pending” button in the upper-right corner above the checklist to send messages to all owners of pending items.

Managing checklist items

Each step has a Checklist tab, from which you can view the list of all checklist items, or Add items to the list or Edit the existing list.

Click the Add button to create a new checklist item.

If you click the Edit button, you'll see additional controls to Delete an item, Edit an item's details, or re-order the list. Hit Done when you're finished making changes.

Checklist item components

Create checklist item dialog

Release step

Specify which step of the release process this checklist item applies to.

Checklist tasks can be particularly helpful for gating automations. For instance, you could set a checklist item as part of the Beta Testing step, which Runway requires to be complete (green) before automatically submitting an update for review to the app store.

Release types

Specify which types of releases (major, minor, point, hotfix) require this checklist item.

Checklist item

A name for this task. This appears on the checklist itself, as well as notifications related to updates on this item.

Notify in Slack or Teams when completed

Keep this option selected if you want your team to be notified about updates to this item during a release cycle. Runway will post in Slack or Teams when a task is completed, or was formerly completed but reverted, as well as who performed the change and when.

Additional information

Optional - You can add information here that can easily be surfaced in Runway for team members working on this task. These notes serve as documentation available on every release cycle. Markdown is supported, and there's a built-in viewer.

For example, if a specific command needs to be run at a certain point in your release cycle, you could paste a code snippet here for engineers who need to complete this task.

Or if a PM needs to share an update with leadership, you could add a handy email template for sending a message to stakeholders.

Owners

Checklist items can specify user groups or individuals as owners – specify a checklist owner if a task is intended to be completed by a specific team member or by a team member from a specific group.

When a checklist item has an owner, only the individual or a user in one of the specified groups will have permission to mark the task as 'completed' or revert a completed status.