The expensive failures during machine commissioning are almost all first-move failures: an axis that runs the wrong way into a hard stop, or one that thinks it is at zero when it is not. Both are preventable in minutes.
Check direction before enabling anything
Confirm the direction convention on paper first: positive command equals which physical direction? Then verify it at the lowest possible speed with the axis in its safest position, ideally by hand if the mechanics allow. Getting this wrong at speed is how ballscrews get replaced.
Verify the limits are real
Hardware limit switches must be wired, working and tested by triggering them physically — not by forcing the bit in the program. Software limits should sit inside the hardware limits with genuine margin, not two millimetres.
Test that the drive actually stops when a limit is hit. Assuming this is how axes end up in hard stops.
Get the scaling right before anything else
Command 10 mm and measure that the axis moved 10 mm. Do it with a rule, not by reading the position feedback back — the feedback will happily confirm its own wrong scaling. Gearbox ratio, screw pitch and encoder resolution all have to be right, and an error in any one of them is invisible until you measure.
Homing: the strategy matters more than the parameters
Decide what happens when the machine is powered up in an unknown position, when it is powered up already at the home switch, and when homing is interrupted halfway. These three cases are where homing bugs live, and they are found by testing them deliberately, not by homing repeatedly from the same convenient position.
Tune under real load
An axis tuned unloaded on the bench will behave differently with the tool, fixture or product mass fitted. Tune with the real load, and check behaviour at the actual production speed rather than at a comfortable test speed.
Check what the axis does on a fault
Emergency stop, drive fault, and loss of enable are three different events and the axis may behave differently in each. Verify each one deliberately: does it decelerate under control, coast, or brake? Is that what the risk assessment assumed?
Write the parameters down
A drive parameter set that exists only in the drive is one failed drive away from being lost. Export it, keep it with the project, and note which machine and axis it belongs to.