iexcel.co — Launch Runbook

Decisions — Locked FINAL

Activity Log LIVE

Newest first. Every state change lands here with a timestamp (US Central — Chicago).

0.Pre-Flight COMPLETE — July 20

Verified before anything touches production.

• Repo synced — local main = origin/main @ 864b393 (Merge PR #120, WordPress 301 redirects)Jul 20, 11:16 PM CT main @ 864b393 (PR #120)Claude ops
• npm run build (server variant) — 428 pages generated, TypeScript cleanJul 20, 11:16 PM CT 428 pagesClaude ops
• STATIC_EXPORT=1 npm run build — the exact build CI runs — greenJul 20, 11:16 PM CT exact CI variantClaude ops
• CI/CD healthy — last 3 GitHub Actions deploys succeeded; production deploy on Pages is commit 864b3934 (identical to HEAD)Jul 20, 11:16 PM CT prod deploy = 864b3934 @ 23:12 UTCClaude ops
• 301 redirect map shipped & mirrored in both places: public/_redirects (static/Pages) + next.config.ts (server) — 40 audited rules from the WordPress mappingJul 20, 11:16 PM CT 40 rules, mirroredDev
• GTM container GTM-W6VSMZG confirmed in the live deploy HTML; loads consent-gated (CCPA/CPRA banner, GPC honored)Jul 20, 11:16 PM CT GTM-W6VSMZG live on deployClaude ops
• Full GoDaddy DNS inventory exported via API — 45 records, disposition table in Appendix AJul 20, 11:16 PM CT 45 records via GoDaddy APIClaude ops
• Known, accepted: 1 pre-existing lint error (CookieBanner.tsx:49, setState-in-effect) — CI does not lint, build unaffected. Post-launch fix.Jul 20, 11:16 PM CT post-launch fixDev

1.Phase 1 — Cloudflare Zone Prep ZERO LIVE IMPACT

Est. 20–30 min. GoDaddy keeps answering all DNS queries until Phase 2 — nothing here is visible to visitors. Everything is staged, then diffed, then we flip.

• 🚨 Launch blocker found in pre-flip testing: old WordPress URLs are canonically slashed (/about-us/) and Cloudflare Pages matches _redirects exactly — slashed variants 404'd. Fix: trailing-slash twins for all 40 rules (PR #121). Verify on branch preview, merge, re-verify on production pages.dev.Jul 20, 11:48 PM CT PR #121 merged; verified on production pages.dev (10/10 paths)Claude ops
• Blocker: the iExcel Cloudflare API token lacks zone.create (verified by attempted zone creation). Micah must upgrade the token in the Cloudflare dashboard (Account → Zone: Edit + Zone → DNS: Edit, all zones in account) or create the iexcel.co zone manually in the dashboard.Micah
• Create the iexcel.co zone in the iExcel Cloudflare account (the account that owns the iexcel-website Pages project — apex custom domains require zone + project in the same account). Zone will sit in pending nameserver state. Record the two assigned Cloudflare nameservers.Claude ops
• Recreate every record from the July 20 GoDaddy export explicitly — do not rely on Cloudflare's automatic import scan (it routinely misses DKIM, SRV, and low-TTL records). Follow Appendix A exactly.Claude ops
• New records for the new site: apex @ CNAME → iexcel-website.pages.dev (Cloudflare flattens at apex), proxied 🟠; www CNAME → iexcel-website.pages.dev, proxied 🟠.Claude ops
• Attach custom domains iexcel.co and www.iexcel.co to the Pages project.Claude ops
• Create the redirect rule: www.iexcel.co/* → https://iexcel.co/$1, 301.Claude ops
• Proxy-status audit — these must be DNS-only (gray cloud) because they terminate TLS on other infrastructure: agents, internaltools, scrum (Google Cloud LB), cleanpower, admin, mail, old, staging (legacy hosts), plus all DKIM/Mailgun CNAMEs.Claude ops
• Final diff: dump the Cloudflare zone and compare line-by-line against the GoDaddy export. Every KEEP row in Appendix A must match. Sign-off required before Phase 2.Claude ops + Micah

2.Phase 2 — The Nameserver Flip GO / NO-GO GATE

Est. 5 min to execute; minutes-to-~1 hour to propagate. This is the go-live moment. Requires explicit go from Micah after the Phase 1 diff sign-off.

• GO / NO-GO: Micah gives the explicit go after reviewing the Phase 1 diff.Micah
• Change nameservers at GoDaddy: ns09/ns10.domaincontrol.com → the two Cloudflare-assigned nameservers (single GoDaddy API call).Claude ops
• Watch the zone go Active in Cloudflare (Cloudflare polls; usually < 30 min for .co).Claude ops
• Universal SSL cert for iexcel.co + www issues automatically once active (typically < 15 min).Automatic
• Announce in team Slack: “NS flipped at [time] — new site propagating. Report anything weird in this channel.”Micah

Propagation reality check

The .co registry publishes NS changes within minutes. Resolvers that cached the old NS records can hold them up to the NS TTL (1 hour). During that window some visitors still get GoDaddy DNS — which is fine, because the GoDaddy zone still answers with the old site. There is no broken state: old-DNS visitors see the old site, new-DNS visitors see the new site, and email records are identical on both sides.

3.Phase 3 — Verification LAUNCH NIGHT

Run top-to-bottom as soon as the zone is Active. Anyone on the team can run these — commands are copy-paste (see command blocks below the list).

• DNS & SSL: NS shows *.ns.cloudflare.com; https://iexcel.co loads with valid cert; https://www.iexcel.co 301s to apex.Claude ops
• Email records intact: MX ×5, SPF, DMARC, Google DKIM all resolve identically to the pre-flip snapshot (commands below).Claude ops
• Send an email from an @iexcel.co address to an external inbox (Gmail) — arrives, passes SPF/DKIM/DMARC (check “show original”).Anyone
• Send an email to an @iexcel.co address from outside — arrives normally.Anyone
• Redirect spot-checks: /about-us → /the-iexcel-team · /shop → /services · /legal-tech-marketing → /what-weve-done/legal-tech-marketing · /product/organic-search-strategy-2 → /services/organic-search-strategy · catch-all /product/* → /services/*.Anyone
• Subdomains: agents.iexcel.co loads the tools hub; scrum, internaltools resolve to 34.160.198.210; old.iexcel.co still reaches the old WP host.Anyone
• Homepage, one case study, one vertical page, /what-weve-done hub — desktop + mobile.Anyone
• /robots.txt and /sitemap.xml load on https://iexcel.co.Anyone
• Cookie banner appears (CA visitors / VPN), GTM fires only after Accept, Reject keeps it silent.Anyone
• Contact form on /chat submits → contact appears in HubSpot (portal 23159503).Micah

Copy-paste verification commands

# --- DNS & SSL ---
dig +short NS iexcel.co @1.1.1.1              # expect *.ns.cloudflare.com
curl -sI https://iexcel.co | head -3
curl -sI https://www.iexcel.co | head -3       # expect 301 → https://iexcel.co/

# --- Email records (must match Appendix A exactly) ---
dig +short MX iexcel.co @1.1.1.1               # 5 Google MX hosts
dig +short TXT iexcel.co @1.1.1.1              # SPF + site verifications
dig +short TXT _dmarc.iexcel.co @1.1.1.1       # v=DMARC1; p=quarantine…
dig +short TXT google._domainkey.iexcel.co @1.1.1.1   # DKIM key

# --- Redirects ---
curl -sI https://iexcel.co/about-us | grep -i location                # → /the-iexcel-team
curl -sI https://iexcel.co/shop | grep -i location                    # → /services
curl -sI https://iexcel.co/legal-tech-marketing | grep -i location    # → /what-weve-done/legal-tech-marketing
curl -sI https://iexcel.co/product/organic-search-strategy-2 | grep -i location  # → /services/organic-search-strategy

# --- Subdomains ---
dig +short agents.iexcel.co @1.1.1.1           # 34.160.198.210
dig +short old.iexcel.co @1.1.1.1              # 107.180.34.184 (old WP reachable)

4.Post-Launch THIS WEEK

The week after go-live.

• Google Search Console: property verification survives (both google-site-verification TXT records carried over) — submit https://iexcel.co/sitemap.xml.Micah
• Bing Webmaster Tools: verify + submit sitemap.Micah
• Monitor GSC coverage daily for 404s the redirect map missed → add rules to both public/_redirects and next.config.ts (they must stay in sync).Team
• Fix CookieBanner.tsx:49 lint error (setState-in-effect).Dev
• Decide fate of staging.iexcel.co (still points at the old WP host); keep old.iexcel.co until content parity is confirmed, then plan old-host decommission.Micah
• Delete the HubSpot test contact created during form testing.Micah
• After 1 week stable: remove stale cPanel plumbing records (autodiscover/cpanel/whm/webdisk/SRV), review Cloudflare cache rules + analytics.Claude ops

A.Appendix — DNS Record Disposition (GoDaddy export, July 20, 2026)

45 records total. KEEP = copy exactly. CHANGE = new value for the new site. SKIP = intentionally not migrated.