Database Migration Approval
Design a release gate for reviewing and approving a production database migration with rollback and ownership evidence.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
A schema or data migration can lock tables, exceed a maintenance window, or leave an application incompatible during rollback. Approvers need operational evidence, not just a green test status.
User context
Ibrahim proposes adding a non-null column to a large orders table. The change uses a staged backfill and must complete before the application starts requiring the value.
Product problem
The approval interface must connect technical plan, measured rehearsal, dependencies, blast radius, and execution authority.
Objective
Create migration submission, evidence review, approval conditions, and live execution handoff for a high-risk database change.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Review the migration sequence and affected services
- Inspect rehearsal metrics and rollback limits
- Approve, reject, or request conditions
- Follow execution checkpoints and stop criteria
Screens and states
- Migration proposal
- Risk and rehearsal evidence
- Approval decision
- Execution monitor
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Ibrahim submits the staged schema and backfill plan
- 02
The reviewer checks lock time, row rate, capacity, and application compatibility
- 03
Approval requires a confirmed on-call owner and a lower batch size
- 04
During execution the team pauses at a replication-lag threshold
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Show forward plan, rollback plan, data validation, and irreversible steps
- Compare rehearsal environment size with production scale
- Support conditional approval with named owners and expiry
- Make stop thresholds visible during execution
Constraints
- The proposer cannot self-approve a protected production change
- Approval expires after material code or schema changes
- Credentials and raw sensitive data cannot appear in evidence
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four desktop screens plus approval-state annotations
If you want more
Optional extensions
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.
Updock & Source Serif Pro
Clear interface writing gives people the confidence to understand what changed and decide what to do next.
Updock & Source Serif Pro
Clear interface writing gives people the confidence to understand what changed and decide what to do next.