Going Live Checklist

Work through this before you open WhatsMine to real customers. It covers the operational pieces that code alone can't guarantee — queue workers, cron, webhooks and email.

1. Environment

  • [ ] APP_ENV=production
  • [ ] APP_DEBUG=false
  • [ ] APP_KEY is set (the installer does this)
  • [ ] APP_URL is your real HTTPS domain
  • [ ] Database credentials are correct
  • [ ] QUEUE_CONNECTION is database or redis (not sync)
  • [ ] CACHE_STORE and SESSION_DRIVER set appropriately

Admin → Cron Setup — the heartbeat must be green before you go live

2. Background processing (critical)

These two pieces power campaigns, inbound messages, AI runs and emails. If they aren't running, those features silently stop.

  • [ ] Queue worker running under a supervisor (Supervisor/systemd):
    php artisan queue:work --queue=whatsapp,broadcast,ai,social,leads,automation,default --tries=3 --max-time=3600
  • [ ] Scheduler cron entry added:
    * * * * * cd /path/to/app && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1
  • [ ] Confirm the scheduler heartbeat is green in Admin → Cron Setup.

See Deployment for full Supervisor/Nginx examples.

3. Email

  • [ ] A working mail transport is configured (MAIL_MAILER ≠ log, or an active SMTP config in Admin → Email System).
  • [ ] MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS / MAIL_FROM_NAME set.
  • [ ] Sent a test email from Admin → Email System and received it.
  • [ ] Email templates are enabled (welcome, invoice, subscription lifecycle, password reset).

4. Payments (if you're charging)

  • [ ] At least one gateway enabled and configured in Admin → Payment Gateways.
  • [ ] Webhook endpoint registered in each gateway dashboard:
    • Stripe → https://your-domain.com/webhooks/stripe
    • PayPal → https://your-domain.com/webhooks/paypal
    • Paddle → https://your-domain.com/webhooks/paddle
  • [ ] Webhook signing secret stored (a missing secret rejects all webhooks in production).
  • [ ] Each plan has the correct price IDs (Stripe/Paddle) — see Plans & Billing.
  • [ ] Ran a full test-mode subscription through checkout → renewal → invoice download.

See the Payments Integration page for the exact events to subscribe to.

5. Channels (Meta / WhatsApp)

  • [ ] Meta App configured in Admin → Integrations (App ID, App Secret, verify token, config IDs).
  • [ ] App is Live in the Meta dashboard with the required permissions approved.
  • [ ] Webhook URLs reachable over HTTPS (auto-registered for embedded signup; manual for Instagram/Messenger).
  • [ ] Queue worker is consuming the whatsapp queue.

See Meta / WhatsApp and Messenger & Instagram.

6. Branding & content

  • [ ] App name, logo, favicon and primary colour set in Admin → Settings.
  • [ ] Landing page content reviewed/edited in Admin → Site Content.
  • [ ] Legal pages (Privacy, Terms, Cookies) reviewed in Admin → CMS Pages.
  • [ ] Support email set.

7. Security

  • [ ] APP_DEBUG=false (never expose stack traces).
  • [ ] HTTPS enforced (valid SSL certificate).
  • [ ] Strong Super-Admin password; consider enabling 2FA.
  • [ ] File permissions: storage/ and bootstrap/cache/ are writable by the web user.
  • [ ] Database backups scheduled (php artisan db:backup).

8. Production optimisation

Run these after each deploy:

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache
php artisan event:cache
php artisan queue:restart

9. Smoke test

  • [ ] Visit the marketing site, sign up a test customer, complete onboarding.
  • [ ] Connect a channel and send/receive a test message.
  • [ ] Create and launch a small test campaign.
  • [ ] Subscribe the test customer to a paid plan (test mode) and confirm the invoice.
  • [ ] Check Admin → Audit Log and Admin → Queue for errors.

✅ All green? You're ready to launch.

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