Docassemble Support and Maintenance Checklist for Enterprise Apps

Introduction

If you run Docassemble in an enterprise setting—especially inside a legal aid organization—your biggest risk isn’t “a bug in one interview.” It’s the quiet operational stuff that creeps in over time: a missed backup, an untested upgrade, a broken package update, a webhook that starts failing, or a sudden spike in usage right before a deadline.

That’s why docassemble support and maintenance should be treated like a real product discipline, not an afterthought. Docassemble is powerful and flexible, but enterprise reliability comes from the routines you run every week: backups that restore cleanly, upgrades that don’t break templates, monitoring that catches issues early, and a clear process for content changes across environments.

This checklist-style guide is built for global teams supporting Docassemble for legal aid workflows—where uptime, data integrity, accessibility, and security are non-negotiable.

Docassemble Support and Maintenance Checklist for Enterprise Apps

1) Establish a Clean Environment Strategy (Dev → Staging → Prod)

If you only do one thing, do this: separate environments.

Checklist

• Dev: for authoring and fast iteration
  
• Staging: for release candidate testing (content + packages + infrastructure)
  
• Production: for public users and staff operations
  

Why it matters
Docassemble apps aren’t just code—they’re interviews, templates, packages, and configuration. Small changes can have big downstream impacts (especially in document output).

Pro tip for legal aid teams
Treat Staging like “court day.” If it works there with real-like inputs, it’s far more likely to work in production.

2) Backups You Can Actually Restore (SQL + Redis + Files)

Backups are only real if you’ve restored them before.

Docassemble’s Docker deployments rely on persistent storage for PostgreSQL and Redis state, and docassemble can restore from stored data when containers restart. Graceful shutdown matters because backup files are created during shutdown.

Checklist

•  Schedule automatic backups (daily minimum; hourly for high-volume orgs)
  
• Backup PostgreSQL, Redis, and uploaded files
  
• Store backups off-host (S3/Azure/secure remote storage)
  
• Run a monthly restore drill into a sandbox environment
  
• Track retention: 7 days + 30 days + 90 days (typical enterprise tiers)
  

Config note
If you’re using a managed database with its own backups, Docassemble config allows disabling its internal backup behavior. 

3) Upgrade Policy: Make Upgrades Boring

Upgrades shouldn’t be scary. They should be routine and test-driven.

Docassemble’s own guidance highlights that once persistent storage is set, upgrading the Docker image can be as simple as stopping the container, pulling the new image, and starting again—with data persisting across upgrades.

Enterprise upgrade checklist

• Upgrade cadence: monthly or quarterly (based on risk appetite)
  
• Read the Docassemble changelog for breaking changes (Python/Bootstrap upgrades can affect interviews/themes).
  
• Run upgrades in Staging first
  
• Regression test your top interviews (see testing section below)
  
• Confirm backups completed before upgrade
  
• Rollback plan documented (what steps, who owns it, where backups are)

4) Package Management: Control “Dependency Drift”

In enterprise Docassemble, most production issues come from package drift:

• a dependency changes
  
• a GitHub package updates unexpectedly
  
• a team member installs a package manually without documenting it
  

Docassemble supports updating packages via the admin “Package Management” screen (with appropriate permissions).

Checklist

• Maintain a “golden list” of installed packages per environment
  
• Pin versions where possible (especially for critical packages)
  
• Update packages in Staging first, then promote
  
• Document why each package exists (owner + function)
  
• Remove unused packages quarterly (security + clarity)
  

For teams using docassembly / AL tools
If you’re using ALDashboard / Assembly Line tooling, keep its release notes in your upgrade workflow too.

5) Monitoring & Alerts: Catch Failures Before Users Do

Legal aid users often arrive in bursts (clinic days, outreach programs, filing deadlines). You want to know what’s breaking before the phone starts ringing.

What to monitor

• Uptime + response time
  
• Error rates (500s, interview exceptions)
  
• Queue health (if using background tasks)
  
• Disk usage for persistent volumes
  
• Database health (connections, storage, slow queries)
  
• Email delivery health (reset links, notifications)
  
• PDF/DOCX generation failures
  

Operational baseline

• A daily “health check” dashboard
  
• Alerts to email/Slack for 5xx spikes
  
• Log retention (30–90 days depending on policy)

6) Security: Least Privilege, Audit Trails, and Safe API Use

Docassemble includes an API that can control many features, and access requires authentication using an API key.
API access also depends on the privileges of the user whose API key is used.

Checklist

• Admin accounts limited to required staff only
  
• Rotate API keys regularly (quarterly is common)
  
• Separate API keys by environment (never reuse prod keys elsewhere)
  
• Use HTTPS everywhere
  
• Review user roles monthly (especially after staff changes)
  
• Log admin actions (who installed packages, who changed config)

7) Performance & Scalability: Design for Bursty Demand

Docassemble supports scaling patterns (including use of cloud storage for persistence and resilient restarts).

Checklist

• Use externalized storage when scaling (S3/Azure for uploads/backups)
  
• Load test critical interviews (peak-day simulation)
  
• Cache wisely (but don’t cache private user data incorrectly)
  
• Keep templates efficient (DOCX/PDF generation can be CPU-heavy)
  
• Plan for “content spikes” (mass outreach campaigns)

8) Testing: Regression Tests for Interviews and Documents

Enterprise maintenance fails when you upgrade and “hope” the top 10 flows still work.

Checklist

• Maintain a “Top Interviews Test Pack”
  
• Store test inputs (dummy but realistic)
  
• Validate output documents:
  
  • correct fields populated
    
  • signatures appear where expected
    
  • formatting not broken
    
  • date/locale correctness for global use
    
• Accessibility checks (screen reader friendly question text, input labels)
  

Legal aid reality check
One broken filing packet can cause real harm. Testing isn’t optional.

9) Change Management: Release Notes and Approvals

Checklist

• Every change has:
  
  • summary
    
  • owner
    
  • environment it was tested in
    
  • rollback note
    
• Weekly or biweekly release window (predictable cadence)
  
• Approvals for production changes (at least one reviewer)
  

Technical Code Section

Below are practical snippets you can adapt for your enterprise runbooks.

A) Backup Script (PostgreSQL + uploads) Example

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

TS=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M")
BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/docassemble"
mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

# 1) Postgres dump from container (adjust container name)
docker exec -t docassemble_postgres pg_dump -U postgres docassemble \
  > "$BACKUP_DIR/docassemble_pg_${TS}.sql"

# 2) Optional: tar uploaded files volume (adjust path/volume mount)
tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/docassemble_files_${TS}.tar.gz" /var/lib/docassemble/files

# 3) Rotate backups older than 30 days
find "$BACKUP_DIR" -type f -mtime +30 -delete

echo "Backup complete: $TS"

B) Restore Drill (Postgres) Example

# Restore SQL into a staging database (be careful in prod!)
cat /var/backups/docassemble/docassemble_pg_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM.sql | \
  docker exec -i docassemble_postgres psql -U postgres docassemble

C) Upgrade Runbook (Docker Image) Template

# 1) Confirm backup completed
# 2) Pull latest image
docker pull jhpyle/docassemble

# 3) Stop services (compose example)
docker compose down

# 4) Start services again
docker compose up -d

# 5) Smoke test
# - open admin UI
# - run top interview
# - generate PDF/DOCX

D) API Health Check (Minimal)

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://YOUR-DOCASSEMBLE-DOMAIN/

FAQs 

1) What’s the #1 mistake organizations make with Docassemble maintenance?

Skipping restore tests. Backups feel “done” until the day you actually need them. A monthly restore drill turns backups from a comfort blanket into real insurance.

2) How often should we upgrade Docassemble in an enterprise environment?

Most teams do monthly or quarterly upgrades. The key is consistency: upgrade in Staging first, test your top interviews, then promote with a rollback plan.

3) Can we safely use the Docassemble API in enterprise apps?

Yes—if you treat API keys like high-privilege credentials, restrict permissions, rotate keys, and log usage. Docassemble’s API uses API key authentication, so key hygiene matters.

4) Do we need DevOps support, or can legal teams manage this?

Many legal aid orgs can manage day-to-day content changes, but infrastructure maintenance (monitoring, backups, upgrades, security) is easier with dedicated ops support—especially as usage grows.

5) What should we monitor to reduce downtime and support tickets?

Uptime, error rates, disk usage, database health, queue health (if applicable), and document generation errors. If you can see failures early, you can fix them before users get stuck.