AI Release Readiness Checklist

A practical, risk-tiered checklist framework for evaluating AI release readiness, with a packaged CLI validator for local use and CI pipelines.

Choose this repo when

Use this repository when you need a working validator for YAML-based release-readiness configurations.

This repo is intentionally narrower than:

• release-governance, which explains the broader release lifecycle and gate model
• governance-playbook, which covers the wider AI operating model
• regulated-ai, which is a starter template repo

Maturity

This is an alpha working tool. It is useful for demos, internal experiments, governance prototyping, and CI-style validation of example release-readiness files. It is not a full policy engine, compliance product, or safety certification tool.

What this repository provides

• a packaged release-checklist CLI for validating YAML-based release gate configurations
• starter templates generated with release-checklist init
• example configurations for medium-risk and high-risk AI systems
• typed validation for known metadata fields, boolean gates, bounded numeric values, and expected mapping shapes
• text, JSON, and Markdown reporting for local use and CI pipelines
• GitHub Actions CI covering supported Python versions and packaged CLI behavior

Naming note

The command-line tool is installed as release-checklist. The Python package namespace is currently airc, short for AI Release Checklist. This keeps the CLI name readable while keeping the internal package namespace concise.

How it works

Three risk tiers are supported, chosen based on safety impact, regulatory exposure, and reversibility:

Tier	Use when
Low risk	Internal tools, no safety impact, easily reversible
Medium risk	Customer-facing, some regulatory context, limited fallback
High risk	Safety-critical, regulated environment, hard to reverse

Higher tiers inherit the required gates from lower tiers and add stricter requirements.

The validator expects a nested YAML structure with these top-level sections:

• metadata
• model_validation
• governance
• infrastructure
• optional but supported: incident_readiness

Known nested sections such as model_validation.performance, governance.approvals, and infrastructure.testing are expected to be mappings rather than free-form lists or strings.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/simaba/release-checklist.git
cd release-checklist
python -m pip install -e .

Validate a working example configuration:

release-checklist validate configs/medium-risk-example.yaml

Generate a report:

release-checklist report configs/medium-risk-example.yaml --format markdown

Create a starter template:

release-checklist init --industry healthcare

Legacy direct execution is still supported for local source checkouts:

python src/check_release.py validate configs/medium-risk-example.yaml

Install development dependencies:

python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

Example configuration shape

metadata:
  project: "IVI assistant"
  version: "1.0.0"
  environment: "staging"
  regulated_industry: "general"
  risk_classification: "medium"

model_validation:
  performance:
    accuracy_threshold: 0.90
    bias_evaluation_complete: true

governance:
  documentation:
    risk_assessment_complete: true
  approvals:
    technical_review: true

infrastructure:
  testing:
    unit_tests_passing: true
  rollback:
    rollback_plan_documented: true

Validation behavior

The validator currently enforces:

• required top-level sections
• required metadata fields
• allow-listed values for environment, industry, and risk tier
• semver-like version formatting such as 1.0.0
• mapping/object shape checks for known structural sections
• boolean typing for known gates
• bounded numeric validation for known fields such as accuracy_threshold
• positive numeric validation for known monitoring fields such as latency_ms

This repository is meant to be useful in real workflows, but it is still a lightweight validator rather than a full policy engine.

Scope and disclaimer

This repository is shared in a personal capacity. It is not legal advice, compliance certification, regulatory approval, safety certification, or official guidance from NIST, the EU, ISO, or any employer.

References to risk tiers, release gates, NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, or industry obligations are practitioner mappings and examples. Always verify against official sources before using this tool for compliance, safety, or release decisions.

Repository structure

configs/
  medium-risk-example.yaml
  high-risk-example.yaml
src/
  airc/
    cli.py
    validator.py
    report.py
    templates.py
  check_release.py
tests/
  test_validator.py
requirements.txt
pyproject.toml
.github/workflows/ci.yml

Related repositories

Repository	What it adds
release-governance	Broader framework this checklist operationalizes
governance-playbook	End-to-end operating model
regulated-ai	Starter template repo with governance artifacts

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Shared in a personal capacity. Open to collaborations and feedback via LinkedIn or Medium.