clay-prod-checklist

Clay Production Checklist

Overview

Complete checklist for launching Clay enrichment pipelines in production. Covers table configuration, credit budgeting, webhook reliability, CRM sync validation, and monitoring setup.

Prerequisites

• Clay table tested with sample data (100+ rows enriched successfully)
• CRM integration tested in staging
• Credit budget approved for monthly volume
• Team trained on Clay table management

Instructions

Phase 1: Table Configuration

• Table schema finalized -- all columns named, typed, and ordered
• Enrichment columns configured -- each column has correct provider and input mapping
• Waterfall configured -- providers ordered cheapest-first with "stop on first result"
• Auto-run settings verified -- table-level auto-update ON, column-level auto-run ON for needed columns
• Conditional run rules set -- enrichments only trigger when input data exists
• Formula columns tested -- ICP scoring and lead grading formulas validated
• AI/Claygent columns reviewed -- prompts produce consistent, quality output

Phase 2: Data Quality Gates

• Input validation in place -- scripts validate data before webhook submission
• Personal email filter -- gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc. blocked from enrichment
• Deduplication active -- duplicate records detected before sending to Clay
• Sample enrichment run completed -- 500+ row test with >60% email find rate
• Credit cost per row calculated -- know your average credits per enriched lead

// Pre-submission validation (run before pushing to Clay)
function validateForProduction(rows: any[]): { valid: any[]; rejected: any[] } {
  const personalDomains = ['gmail.com', 'yahoo.com', 'hotmail.com', 'outlook.com', 'icloud.com'];
  const seen = new Set<string>();
  const valid: any[] = [];
  const rejected: any[] = [];

  for (const row of rows) {
    const key = `${row.domain}:${row.first_name}:${row.last_name}`.toLowerCase();

    if (!row.domain?.includes('.'))
      rejected.push({ row, reason: 'invalid domain' });
    else if (personalDomains.some(d => row.domain.endsWith(d)))
      rejected.push({ row, reason: 'personal email domain' });
    else if (seen.has(key))
      rejected.push({ row, reason: 'duplicate' });
    else {
      seen.add(key);
      valid.push(row);
    }
  }

  console.log(`Validation: ${valid.length} valid, ${rejected.length} rejected (${(rejected.length / rows.length * 100).toFixed(1)}% filtered)`);
  return { valid, rejected };
}

Phase 3: Credit & Cost Controls

• Monthly credit budget set -- know your plan's monthly credits
• Table row limits configured -- max rows set to prevent runaway enrichment
• Provider API keys connected -- own keys for high-volume providers (saves 70-80%)
• Credit burn monitoring -- alerts when daily usage exceeds threshold
• Webhook submission counter -- tracking against 50K lifetime limit

Phase 4: Integration Reliability

• Webhook endpoint health check -- Clay can reach your callback URL
• Retry logic implemented -- 429 and 5xx responses handled with backoff
• CRM sync tested -- enriched records correctly map to CRM objects
• HTTP API columns tested -- outbound API calls return expected data
• Error handling for empty enrichments -- graceful handling when providers return no data

# Pre-flight connectivity checks
echo "=== Clay Production Pre-flight ==="

# 1. Webhook reachable
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Webhook: HTTP %{http_code}\n" \
  -X POST "$CLAY_WEBHOOK_URL" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"_preflight": true}'

# 2. Enterprise API (if applicable)
if [ -n "${CLAY_API_KEY:-}" ]; then
  curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Enterprise API: HTTP %{http_code}\n" \
    -X POST "https://api.clay.com/v1/people/enrich" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAY_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"email": "[email protected]"}'
fi

# 3. Callback endpoint reachable
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Callback endpoint: HTTP %{http_code}\n" \
  "https://your-app.com/api/health"

Phase 5: Monitoring & Alerting

• Credit consumption tracked -- daily/weekly credit usage logged
• Enrichment hit rate monitored -- alert if email find rate drops below 40%
• Webhook delivery failures alerted -- notification on 4xx/5xx from webhooks
• CRM sync errors tracked -- alert on failed CRM pushes
• Table row count monitored -- alert when approaching plan limits

Phase 6: Documentation & Runbooks

• Table schema documented -- column purposes, providers, and dependencies
• Credit cost model documented -- expected cost per lead at current volume
• Webhook rotation procedure -- steps to replace exhausted webhook (50K limit)
• Provider failover plan -- what to do when a provider is down
• On-call escalation path -- who to contact for Clay issues

Error Handling

Resources

• Clay Plans & Billing
• Clay University -- Table Management

Next Steps

For version upgrades, see clay-upgrade-migration.