---

name: deepgram-prod-checklist description: | Execute Deepgram production deployment checklist. Use when preparing for production launch, auditing production readiness, or verifying deployment configurations. Trigger with phrases like "deepgram production", "deploy deepgram", "deepgram prod checklist", "deepgram go-live", "production ready deepgram". allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Bash(curl:*) version: 1.0.0 license: MIT author: Jeremy Longshore jeremy@intentsolutions.io

Deepgram Production Checklist

Overview

Comprehensive checklist for deploying Deepgram integrations to production.

Pre-Deployment Checklist

API Configuration

• Production API key created and stored securely
• API key has appropriate scopes (minimal permissions)
• Key expiration set (recommended: 90 days)
• Fallback/backup key available
• Rate limits understood and planned for

Error Handling

• All API errors caught and logged
• Retry logic implemented with exponential backoff
• Circuit breaker pattern in place
• Fallback behavior defined for API failures
• User-friendly error messages configured

Performance

• Connection pooling configured
• Request timeouts set appropriately
• Concurrent request limits configured
• Audio preprocessing optimized
• Response caching implemented where applicable

Security

• API keys in secret manager (not environment variables in code)
• HTTPS enforced for all requests
• Input validation on audio URLs
• Sensitive data redaction configured
• Audit logging enabled

Monitoring

• Health check endpoint implemented
• Metrics collection configured
• Alerting rules defined
• Dashboard created
• Log aggregation set up

Documentation

• API integration documented
• Runbooks created
• On-call procedures defined
• Escalation path established

Production Configuration

TypeScript Production Client

Copy// lib/deepgram-production.ts
import { createClient, DeepgramClient } from '@deepgram/sdk';
import { getSecret } from './secrets';
import { metrics } from './metrics';
import { logger } from './logger';

interface ProductionConfig {
  timeout: number;
  retries: number;
  model: string;
}

const config: ProductionConfig = {
  timeout: 30000,
  retries: 3,
  model: 'nova-2',
};

let client: DeepgramClient | null = null;

export async function getProductionClient(): Promise<DeepgramClient> {
  if (client) return client;

  const apiKey = await getSecret('DEEPGRAM_API_KEY');
  client = createClient(apiKey, {
    global: {
      fetch: {
        options: {
          timeout: config.timeout,
        },
      },
    },
  });

  return client;
}

export async function transcribeProduction(
  audioUrl: string,
  options: { language?: string; callback?: string } = {}
) {
  const startTime = Date.now();
  const requestId = crypto.randomUUID();

  logger.info('Starting transcription', { requestId, audioUrl: sanitize(audioUrl) });

  try {
    const deepgram = await getProductionClient();

    const { result, error } = await deepgram.listen.prerecorded.transcribeUrl(
      { url: audioUrl },
      {
        model: config.model,
        language: options.language || 'en',
        smart_format: true,
        punctuate: true,
        callback: options.callback,
      }
    );

    const duration = Date.now() - startTime;
    metrics.histogram('deepgram.transcription.duration', duration);

    if (error) {
      metrics.increment('deepgram.transcription.error');
      logger.error('Transcription failed', { requestId, error: error.message });
      throw new Error(error.message);
    }

    metrics.increment('deepgram.transcription.success');
    logger.info('Transcription complete', {
      requestId,
      deepgramRequestId: result.metadata?.request_id,
      duration,
    });

    return result;
  } catch (err) {
    metrics.increment('deepgram.transcription.exception');
    logger.error('Transcription exception', {
      requestId,
      error: err instanceof Error ? err.message : 'Unknown error',
    });
    throw err;
  }
}

function sanitize(url: string): string {
  try {
    const parsed = new URL(url);
    return `${parsed.protocol}//${parsed.host}${parsed.pathname}`;
  } catch {
    return '[invalid-url]';
  }
}

Health Check Endpoint

Copy// routes/health.ts
import { getProductionClient } from '../lib/deepgram-production';

interface HealthStatus {
  status: 'healthy' | 'degraded' | 'unhealthy';
  timestamp: string;
  checks: {
    deepgram: {
      status: 'pass' | 'fail';
      latency?: number;
      message?: string;
    };
  };
}

export async function healthCheck(): Promise<HealthStatus> {
  const checks: HealthStatus['checks'] = {
    deepgram: { status: 'fail' },
  };

  // Test Deepgram API
  const startTime = Date.now();
  try {
    const client = await getProductionClient();
    const { error } = await client.manage.getProjects();

    checks.deepgram = {
      status: error ? 'fail' : 'pass',
      latency: Date.now() - startTime,
      message: error?.message,
    };
  } catch (err) {
    checks.deepgram = {
      status: 'fail',
      latency: Date.now() - startTime,
      message: err instanceof Error ? err.message : 'Unknown error',
    };
  }

  const allPassing = Object.values(checks).every(c => c.status === 'pass');
  const anyFailing = Object.values(checks).some(c => c.status === 'fail');

  return {
    status: allPassing ? 'healthy' : anyFailing ? 'unhealthy' : 'degraded',
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
    checks,
  };
}

Production Metrics

Copy// lib/metrics.ts
import { Counter, Histogram, Registry } from 'prom-client';

export const registry = new Registry();

export const transcriptionDuration = new Histogram({
  name: 'deepgram_transcription_duration_seconds',
  help: 'Duration of Deepgram transcription requests',
  labelNames: ['status', 'model'],
  buckets: [0.1, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 30, 60],
  registers: [registry],
});

export const transcriptionTotal = new Counter({
  name: 'deepgram_transcription_total',
  help: 'Total number of transcription requests',
  labelNames: ['status', 'error_code'],
  registers: [registry],
});

export const audioProcessedSeconds = new Counter({
  name: 'deepgram_audio_processed_seconds_total',
  help: 'Total seconds of audio processed',
  registers: [registry],
});

export const rateLimitHits = new Counter({
  name: 'deepgram_rate_limit_hits_total',
  help: 'Number of rate limit errors encountered',
  registers: [registry],
});

export const metrics = {
  recordTranscription(status: 'success' | 'error', duration: number, audioSeconds?: number) {
    transcriptionDuration.labels(status, 'nova-2').observe(duration / 1000);
    transcriptionTotal.labels(status, '').inc();
    if (audioSeconds) {
      audioProcessedSeconds.inc(audioSeconds);
    }
  },

  recordRateLimitHit() {
    rateLimitHits.inc();
  },
};

Alerting Configuration

Copy# prometheus/alerts/deepgram.yml
groups:
  - name: deepgram
    rules:
      - alert: DeepgramHighErrorRate
        expr: |
          sum(rate(deepgram_transcription_total{status="error"}[5m])) /
          sum(rate(deepgram_transcription_total[5m])) > 0.05
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: critical
        annotations:
          summary: High Deepgram error rate
          description: Error rate is above 5% for the last 5 minutes

      - alert: DeepgramHighLatency
        expr: |
          histogram_quantile(0.95,
            sum(rate(deepgram_transcription_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) by (le)
          ) > 10
        for: 5m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: High Deepgram latency
          description: P95 latency is above 10 seconds

      - alert: DeepgramRateLimiting
        expr: increase(deepgram_rate_limit_hits_total[1h]) > 10
        for: 0m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: Deepgram rate limiting detected
          description: More than 10 rate limit hits in the last hour

      - alert: DeepgramDown
        expr: up{job="deepgram-health"} == 0
        for: 2m
        labels:
          severity: critical
        annotations:
          summary: Deepgram health check failing
          description: Health check has been failing for 2 minutes

Runbook Template

Copy# Deepgram Incident Runbook

## Quick Reference
- **Deepgram Status Page**: https://status.deepgram.com
- **Console**: https://console.deepgram.com
- **Support**: support@deepgram.com

## Common Issues

### Issue: High Error Rate
**Symptoms**: Error rate > 5%

**Steps**:
1. Check Deepgram status page
2. Review error logs for specific error codes
3. If 429 errors: check rate limit configuration
4. If 401 errors: verify API key validity
5. If 500 errors: escalate to Deepgram support

### Issue: High Latency
**Symptoms**: P95 > 10 seconds

**Steps**:
1. Check audio file sizes (large files = longer processing)
2. Review concurrent request count
3. Check network latency to Deepgram
4. Consider using callback URLs for large files

### Issue: API Key Expiring
**Symptoms**: Alert from key monitoring

**Steps**:
1. Generate new API key in Console
2. Update secret manager
3. Verify new key works
4. Schedule deletion of old key (24h grace period)

Go-Live Checklist

Copy## Pre-Launch (D-7)
- [ ] Load testing completed
- [ ] Security review passed
- [ ] Documentation finalized
- [ ] Team trained on runbooks

## Launch Day (D-0)
- [ ] Final smoke test passed
- [ ] Monitoring dashboards open
- [ ] On-call rotation confirmed
- [ ] Rollback plan ready

## Post-Launch (D+1)
- [ ] No critical alerts
- [ ] Error rate within SLA
- [ ] Performance metrics acceptable
- [ ] Customer feedback collected

Resources

• Deepgram Production Guide
• Deepgram SLA
• Support Portal

Next Steps

Proceed to deepgram-upgrade-migration for SDK upgrade guidance.