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": "test@example.com"}'
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

Output

Create a production-readiness record that ties each required control to an owner, redacted evidence, approval, validation time, and tested rollback. It must name the currently certified table/CRM state and must not contain live credentials, raw lead records, webhook URLs, or unapproved provider output.

Examples

Before enabling a production table, run a protected preflight with a synthetic row, verify budget alerts, deduplication, callback health, and CRM suppression conditions, then attach the results to the change record. If any alert or rollback test fails, keep automation disabled and restore the last certified configuration.

Resources

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

Next Steps

For version upgrades, see clay-upgrade-migration.