Moratorium template
A change freeze plan built on the moratorium presets in Atlas: a yearly holiday freeze, a sale-season block on releases, and a weekly weekend block on deployments, each at the enforcement level it needs.
Overview
A change freeze, also called a moratorium or blackout window, is a period when a team deliberately does not ship. Holidays leave nobody to watch production, a sale makes any change too risky, and some windows are set by compliance.
In Atlas a moratorium is a window in the workspace time zone, optionally repeating every year or every week, scoped to projects and environments, with one of four enforcement levels. Three presets give a starting point: Christmas and New Year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and Every weekend.
A freeze is only useful when it is enforced. Atlas checks moratoriums when a release is created, when it is moved to Released, and when a deployment is recorded, and an allowed release type or an approved exception turns a block into a warning.
What is included
From 24 December to 2 January, repeating every year, for the holiday reason, at Freeze all: no new release, no release, and no deployment.
From the Friday after the fourth Thursday of November for four days, for the sale reason, at Block releases: no release may ship or deploy.
From Saturday to Monday, repeating every week, for the staffing reason, at Block deployments: no deployment may be recorded.
Warn blocks nothing and is shown everywhere. Block deployments refuses deployments. Block releases also refuses moving a release to Released. Freeze all also refuses creating a release.
Name release types that are let through, such as Hotfix, and let a release ask for an exception that a workspace owner or administrator approves.
How to use it
Go to /releases/moratoriums. Creating and editing moratoriums is for workspace owners and administrators.
Choose a preset, then adjust its dates, time zone, environments, projects, and enforcement level to fit your calendar.
Name the release types allowed during the freeze, for example Hotfix, so a live problem can still be fixed.
When a release asks to ship during a freeze, approve or reject the request from the exceptions queue.
FAQ
Ready when you are
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