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2025-12-22: Hard Production Change Lock (2025-12-22 to 2026-01-05)

Production Change Lock

CR for the Hard PCL - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/infrastructure/change-management/#production-change-lock-pcl

This CR will prevent Feature Flags changes during the PCL

For a full description of restrictions please see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/infrastructure/change-management/#hard-pcl

Lock Summary

Details

  1. Lock type - Hard
  2. Lock DRI - @rnienaber
  3. Start Date - 2025-12-22 22:00 UTC
  4. End Date - 2026-12-05 02:00 UTC

Set Maintenance Mode in GitLab

If your change involves scheduled maintenance, add a step to set and unset maintenance mode per our runbooks. This will make sure SLA calculations adjust for the maintenance period.

Detailed steps for the change

Change Steps - steps to take to execute the change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

  • On 2025-12-22 at 22:00 UTC, Set label ~"change::in-progress" /label ~change::in-progress
  • On 2026-12-05 at 02:00 UTC, Set label ~"change::complete" /label ~change::complete

Rollback

Rollback steps - steps to be taken in the event of a need to rollback this change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

  • Set label ~"change::aborted" /label ~change::aborted

Change Reviewer checklist

C4 C3 C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The scheduled day and time of execution of the change is appropriate.
    • The change plan is technically accurate.
    • The change plan includes estimated timing values based on previous testing.
    • The change plan includes a viable rollback plan.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.

C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The complexity of the plan is appropriate for the corresponding risk of the change. (i.e. the plan contains clear details).
    • The change plan includes success measures for all steps/milestones during the execution.
    • The change adequately minimizes risk within the environment/service.
    • The performance implications of executing the change are well-understood and documented.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.
      • If not, is it possible (or necessary) to make changes to observability platforms for added visibility?
    • The change has a primary and secondary SRE with knowledge of the details available during the change window.
    • The change window has been agreed with Release Managers in advance of the change. If the change is planned for APAC hours, this issue has an agreed pre-change approval.
    • The labels blocks deployments and/or blocks feature-flags are applied as necessary.

Change Technician checklist

  • Check if all items below are complete:
    • The change plan is technically accurate.
    • This Change Issue is linked to the appropriate Issue and/or Epic
    • Change has been tested in staging and results noted in a comment on this issue.
    • A dry-run has been conducted and results noted in a comment on this issue.
    • The change execution window respects the Production Change Lock periods.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the change event is added to the GitLab Production calendar.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call has been informed prior to change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @sre-oncall and this issue and await their acknowledgement.)
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call provided approval with the eoc_approved label on the issue.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the Infrastructure Manager provided approval with the manager_approved label on the issue.
    • Release managers have been informed prior to any C1, C2, or blocks deployments change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @release-managers and this issue and await their acknowledgment.)
    • There are currently no active incidents that are severity1 or severity2
    • If the change involves doing maintenance on a database host, an appropriate silence targeting the host(s) should be added for the duration of the change.