Favicon Governance Checklist

Treat icons like any other brand-critical asset. This checklist keeps multi-team orgs aligned before, during, and after rebrands.

Audit in four passes

Inventory every surface — List browser tabs, bookmarks, iOS/Android homescreens, Windows tiles, Slack unfurls, marketing landing pages, and micro-sites.

Map owners and SLAs — Assign design systems, brand, platform infra, and product marketing to the surfaces they own. Document who approves icon changes.

Capture current assets — Export the existing favicon.ico, PNGs, masks, and manifest data into a version-controlled repository.

Flag gaps — Look for missing Apple touch icons, outdated 32x32 tabs, mismatched theme colors, or stale manifest metadata.

Who owns what

Aligning teams prevents icons from drifting apart after the initial launch rush.

Team | Responsibility | Tooling
Design Systems | Creates source artwork, sets color palette, owns overlays for environments. | Figma libraries, token files, accessibility review.
Platform / DevOps | Automates generation, stores assets in CDN buckets, references them via env vars. | CI pipelines, infrastructure as code, Favicon Tools CLI.
Security / Compliance | Ensures icons change during incident modes and that certificates match icon hosts. | Change management systems, monitoring hooks, approval workflows.
Marketing / Growth | Keeps campaign-specific icons aligned with seasonal launches and SEO programs. | Content calendars, CMS integrations, experiment frameworks.

KPIs to watch

Measure completion rate of your favicon checklist per release, and track how many incidents mention “wrong environment” or “outdated icon”.

A 0% incident KPI tells leadership the investment was worth it.

Legal and compliance

Some industries (finance, healthcare) require documented change logs. Store every icon export with timestamps and approvers.

Link the records to your SOC2 or ISO evidence folders so audits move faster.

Deployment checklist

Run this any time you tweak icons, colors, or manifest metadata.

Put the audit on a schedule — Schedule a quarterly favicon audit that runs alongside accessibility and SEO scans.

Version the assets — Version all icons plus manifest.json in a dedicated repository with semantic tags.

Review icon changes like code — Require pull requests for any icon update, including preview links showing tab, mobile, and install views.

Test production bytes — Wire automated tests (Playwright or custom scripts) that download icons from production and compare hashes against expected assets.

Tell CX and Support — Announce changes so they recognize the latest icon when creating status-page updates.

Documentation pack

Include icon usage guidelines, environment color references, and manifest requirements in your brand wiki.

Link directly to the Favicon Tools generator preset so designers can export approved formats without guesswork.

Disaster recovery mode: Prepare an incident icon (a yellow badge, say) that can be pushed to production within minutes to signal maintenance mode. Using the same pipeline as normal releases ensures parity and reduces manual uploads.