Release Ceremony

PrivateDAO treats any future mainnet cutover or upgrade event as a release ceremony, not as a casual deploy.

Purpose

This document defines the minimum release discipline expected before any production-bound deployment, upgrade, or authority-sensitive action.

Ceremony Principles

• freeze one exact commit under review
• bind every deployment step to recorded evidence
• use explicit operator identity and authority handling
• verify primary and fallback RPC assumptions before and after release
• retain post-deploy proof, not just pre-deploy intent

Mandatory Inputs

• reviewed commit hash
• expected program id
• operator identity
• signer custody decision
• RPC primary and fallback endpoints
• release timestamp

Mandatory Gates

npm run verify:live-proof
npm run verify:release-manifest
npm run verify:review-links
npm run verify:review-surface
npm run check:mainnet

Evidence To Preserve

• reviewed commit hash
• deployment transaction or upgrade transaction
• recorded operator identity
• post-deploy verification output
• explorer references
• generated release-ceremony attestation

Honest Boundary

This ceremony layer improves operational rigor and reviewer confidence.

It does not replace:

• external audit sign-off
• organization-specific custody approvals
• legal or organizational release controls outside the repository