Checklist

GDPR checklist.
For SaaS engineering teams.

The 30-day plan, the Jira backlog, and the agent prompts. Built for teams that have a coding agent and a sprint cadence — not teams that have a 9-month consulting program.

12 min read·Updated 2026-04·30-day plan · Jira-shaped
The 30-day plan

Day-by-day, ordered by what procurement actually checks.

  1. 01
    Day 1–3 · Inventory the data
    List every service that touches personal data, where it stores, who has access. The map is the artifact — most teams skip this and pay for it later.
  2. 02
    Day 4–8 · Encryption + access
    Encryption at rest and in transit (Article 32(1)(a)), RBAC + MFA + audit log on personal data stores (Articles 28(3)(b), 32(4)). These two are non-negotiable.
  3. 03
    Day 9–14 · DSR plumbing
    Export and delete endpoints. Test that delete propagates to replicas, backups, search indexes, and analytics warehouses. Articles 15, 17, 20.
  4. 04
    Day 15–21 · Retention + audit log
    Per-purpose retention rules in code, scheduled deletion jobs, audit log demonstrating accountability. Articles 5(1)(e), 5(2).
  5. 05
    Day 22–26 · Processor commitments
    Sub-processor list (public page), DPA template ready to send, processing instructions documented. Article 28.
  6. 06
    Day 27–30 · Breach plumbing
    Detection in place + 72-hour escalation runbook. Most teams have detection, few have the runbook. Articles 33, 34.
Jira-shaped

The backlog you can paste into your tracker.

The structure below maps onto RuleMesh bundles, but works whether or not you use the Jira app. Five epics, each carrying its own IT requirements, cloud control mappings, and evidence schema.

  • check_circle
    EPIC: access-control-security
    Bundles encryption, RBAC, audit logging. 19 sub-tasks if you map every IT requirement; ~6 if you collapse them.
  • check_circle
    EPIC: data-subject-rights
    Export endpoint + delete pipeline + restriction handling. Test against your search index and analytics warehouse.
  • check_circle
    EPIC: retention-and-deletion
    Per-purpose retention schedule, scheduled jobs, hard-delete (not soft).
  • check_circle
    EPIC: processor-governance
    Sub-processor inventory, DPA template, instruction-bound processing controls.
  • check_circle
    EPIC: breach-notification-pipeline
    Detection → escalation → 72-hour notification runbook.
If you use the RuleMesh Jira app
The app provisions these epics with sub-tasks pre-populated, the compliance checklist auto-completes from agent evidence signals, and the project-level posture board shows what's verified vs outstanding. Marketplace approval is pending — the headless MCP path works in the meantime. Join the launch list.
Agent prompts

Copy-paste into Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex.

One install, one prompt. The MCP server returns the bundle's IT requirements, cloud control mappings, and evidence schema. The agent does the rest.

install (one-time)
~/your-repo $ claude mcp add rulemesh
→ opens browser to authenticate
→ tool registered: pull_rules
→ tool registered: submit_signals
✓ connected
prompt 1 · scan the codebase
Run an audit of this repo against GDPR Article 32 controls.
Use rulemesh.pull_rules("access-control-security") and tell me what's
already in place vs what's missing. Submit findings via submit_signals.
prompt 2 · implement a bundle
Implement the data-subject-rights bundle. Pull the rules from
rulemesh, write the export and delete endpoints, test that delete
propagates to replicas and search indexes, and submit evidence for
each requirement.
prompt 3 · just give me the checklist
Pull the access-control-security bundle from rulemesh and produce a
markdown checklist I can paste into our Jira epic. One line per
requirement, with the cloud control IDs and evidence type.
What this is not

The honesty section.

This checklist is engineering work — the layer where compliance is demonstrable. It does not replace:

  • The Records of Processing Activities document (Article 30) — paperwork, owned by the DPO.
  • The Data Protection Impact Assessment for high-risk processing (Article 35) — paperwork, owned by the DPO.
  • The lawful basis decision for each processing purpose — legal call, owned by counsel.
  • The DPA you sign with customers and sub-processors — legal artifact.

Engineering owns the execution layer. That's a feature, not a bug.

Related

Run this loop on your codebase.

Free MCP install. No credit card. Start with the agent you already use.