production verification is part of done

i keep seeing teams treat the commit as the finish line. the merge is real progress, but it is not the full answer.

the product still has to survive production. until that live check happens, the work is still carrying risk.

the live check is the receipt. it is the point where the real answer shows up, because production is where the product has to hold together.

without that check, you can ship code and still be guessing. that is how progress gets mistaken for certainty.

builders need a hard finish line. for me, that line includes validation in prod every time.

if a team wants a cleaner definition of done, this is the standard I would push on: code merged, product checked where it matters, then call it finished.

the simplest check is the one at the end: what does your team call done?

if the answer stops at merge, there is still a gap between shipping and knowing.