ui/.cursor/skills/deploy/SKILL.md

name, description, category, tags, disable-model-invocation

name	description	category	tags	disable-model-invocation
deploy	Comprehensive deployment skill covering status check, env setup, containerization, CI/CD pipeline, environment strategy, observability, deployment procedures, and deployment scripts. 7-step workflow: Status & env check, Docker containerization, CI/CD pipeline definition, environment strategy, observability planning, deployment procedures, deployment scripts. Uses _docs/04_deploy/ structure. Trigger phrases: - "deploy", "deployment", "deployment strategy" - "CI/CD", "pipeline", "containerize" - "observability", "monitoring", "logging" - "dockerize", "docker compose"	ship	deployment docker ci-cd observability monitoring containerization scripts	true

Deployment Planning

Plan and document the full deployment lifecycle: check deployment status and environment requirements, containerize the application, define CI/CD pipelines, configure environments, set up observability, document deployment procedures, and generate deployment scripts.

Core Principles

• Docker-first: every component runs in a container; local dev, blackbox tests, and production all use Docker
• Infrastructure as code: all deployment configuration is version-controlled
• Observability built-in: logging, metrics, and tracing are part of the deployment plan, not afterthoughts
• Environment parity: dev, staging, and production environments mirror each other as closely as possible
• Save immediately: write artifacts to disk after each step; never accumulate unsaved work
• Ask, don't assume: when infrastructure constraints or preferences are unclear, ask the user
• Plan, don't code: this workflow produces deployment documents and specifications, not implementation code (except deployment scripts in Step 7)

Context Resolution

Fixed paths:

• DOCUMENT_DIR: _docs/02_document/
• DEPLOY_DIR: _docs/04_deploy/
• REPORTS_DIR: _docs/04_deploy/reports/
• SCRIPTS_DIR: scripts/
• ARCHITECTURE: _docs/02_document/architecture.md
• COMPONENTS_DIR: _docs/02_document/components/

Announce the resolved paths to the user before proceeding.

Input Specification

Required Files

File	Purpose	Required
_docs/00_problem/problem.md	Problem description and context	Greenfield only
_docs/00_problem/restrictions.md	Constraints and limitations	Greenfield only
_docs/01_solution/solution.md	Finalized solution	Greenfield only
DOCUMENT_DIR/architecture.md	Architecture (from plan or document skill)	Always
DOCUMENT_DIR/components/	Component specs	Always

Prerequisite Checks (BLOCKING)

1. architecture.md exists — STOP if missing, run /plan first
2. At least one component spec exists in DOCUMENT_DIR/components/ — STOP if missing
3. Create DEPLOY_DIR, REPORTS_DIR, and SCRIPTS_DIR if they do not exist
4. If DEPLOY_DIR already contains artifacts, ask user: resume from last checkpoint or start fresh?

Artifact Management

Directory Structure

DEPLOY_DIR/
├── containerization.md
├── ci_cd_pipeline.md
├── environment_strategy.md
├── observability.md
├── deployment_procedures.md
├── deploy_scripts.md
└── reports/
    └── deploy_status_report.md

SCRIPTS_DIR/           (project root)
├── deploy.sh
├── pull-images.sh
├── start-services.sh
├── stop-services.sh
└── health-check.sh

.env                   (project root, git-ignored)
.env.example           (project root, committed)

Save Timing

Step	Save immediately after	Filename
Step 1	Status check & env setup complete	reports/deploy_status_report.md + .env + .env.example
Step 2	Containerization plan complete	containerization.md
Step 3	CI/CD pipeline defined	ci_cd_pipeline.md
Step 4	Environment strategy documented	environment_strategy.md
Step 5	Observability plan complete	observability.md
Step 6	Deployment procedures documented	deployment_procedures.md
Step 7	Deployment scripts created	deploy_scripts.md + scripts in SCRIPTS_DIR/

Resumability

If DEPLOY_DIR already contains artifacts:

1. List existing files and match to the save timing table
2. Identify the last completed step
3. Resume from the next incomplete step
4. Inform the user which steps are being skipped

Progress Tracking

At the start of execution, create a TodoWrite with all steps (1 through 7). Update status as each step completes.

Workflow

Step 1: Deployment Status & Environment Setup

Role: DevOps / Platform engineer Goal: Assess current deployment readiness, identify all required environment variables, and create .env files Constraints: Must complete before any other step

1. Read architecture.md, all component specs, and restrictions.md
2. Assess deployment readiness:
   • List all components and their current state (planned / implemented / tested)
   • Identify external dependencies (databases, APIs, message queues, cloud services)
   • Identify infrastructure prerequisites (container registry, cloud accounts, DNS, SSL certificates)
   • Check if any deployment blockers exist
3. Identify all required environment variables by scanning:
   • Component specs for configuration needs
   • Database connection requirements
   • External API endpoints and credentials
   • Feature flags and runtime configuration
   • Container registry credentials
   • Cloud provider credentials
   • Monitoring/logging service endpoints
4. Generate .env.example in project root with all variables and placeholder values (committed to VCS)
5. Generate .env in project root with development defaults filled in where safe (git-ignored)
6. Ensure .gitignore includes .env (but NOT .env.example)
7. Produce a deployment status report summarizing readiness, blockers, and required setup

Self-verification:

• All components assessed for deployment readiness
• External dependencies catalogued
• Infrastructure prerequisites identified
• All required environment variables discovered
• .env.example created with placeholder values
• .env created with safe development defaults
• .gitignore updated to exclude .env
• Status report written to reports/deploy_status_report.md

Save action: Write reports/deploy_status_report.md using templates/deploy_status_report.md, create .env and .env.example in project root

BLOCKING: Present status report and environment variables to user. Do NOT proceed until confirmed.

---

Step 2: Containerization

Role: DevOps / Platform engineer Goal: Define Docker configuration for every component, local development, and blackbox test environments Constraints: Plan only — no Dockerfile creation. Describe what each Dockerfile should contain.

1. Read architecture.md and all component specs
2. Read restrictions.md for infrastructure constraints
3. Research best Docker practices for the project's tech stack (multi-stage builds, base image selection, layer optimization)
4. For each component, define:
   • Base image (pinned version, prefer alpine/distroless for production)
   • Build stages (dependency install, build, production)
   • Non-root user configuration
   • Health check endpoint and command
   • Exposed ports
   • .dockerignore contents
5. Define docker-compose.yml for local development:
   • All application components
   • Database (Postgres) with named volume
   • Any message queues, caches, or external service mocks
   • Shared network
   • Environment variable files (.env)
6. Define docker-compose.test.yml for blackbox tests:
   • Application components under test
   • Test runner container (black-box, no internal imports)
   • Isolated database with seed data
   • All tests runnable via docker compose -f docker-compose.test.yml up --abort-on-container-exit
7. Define image tagging strategy: <registry>/<project>/<component>:<git-sha> for CI, latest for local dev only

Self-verification:

• Every component has a Dockerfile specification
• Multi-stage builds specified for all production images
• Non-root user for all containers
• Health checks defined for every service
• docker-compose.yml covers all components + dependencies
• docker-compose.test.yml enables black-box testing
• .dockerignore defined

Save action: Write containerization.md using templates/containerization.md

BLOCKING: Present containerization plan to user. Do NOT proceed until confirmed.

---

Step 3: CI/CD Pipeline

Role: DevOps engineer Goal: Define the CI/CD pipeline with quality gates, security scanning, and multi-environment deployment Constraints: Pipeline definition only — produce YAML specification, not implementation

1. Read architecture.md for tech stack and deployment targets
2. Read restrictions.md for CI/CD constraints (cloud provider, registry, etc.)
3. Research CI/CD best practices for the project's platform (GitHub Actions / Azure Pipelines)
4. Define pipeline stages:

Stage	Trigger	Steps	Quality Gate
Lint	Every push	Run linters per language (black, rustfmt, prettier, dotnet format)	Zero errors
Test	Every push	Unit tests, blackbox tests, coverage report	75%+ coverage (see .cursor/rules/cursor-meta.mdc Quality Thresholds)
Security	Every push	Dependency audit, SAST scan (Semgrep/SonarQube), image scan (Trivy)	Zero critical/high CVEs
Build	PR merge to dev	Build Docker images, tag with git SHA	Build succeeds
Push	After build	Push to container registry	Push succeeds
Deploy Staging	After push	Deploy to staging environment	Health checks pass
Smoke Tests	After staging deploy	Run critical path tests against staging	All pass
Deploy Production	Manual approval	Deploy to production	Health checks pass

5. Define caching strategy: dependency caches, Docker layer caches, build artifact caches
6. Define parallelization: which stages can run concurrently
7. Define notifications: build failures, deployment status, security alerts

Self-verification:

• All pipeline stages defined with triggers and gates
• Coverage threshold enforced (75%+)
• Security scanning included (dependencies + images + SAST)
• Caching configured for dependencies and Docker layers
• Multi-environment deployment (staging → production)
• Rollback procedure referenced
• Notifications configured

Save action: Write ci_cd_pipeline.md using templates/ci_cd_pipeline.md

---

Step 4: Environment Strategy

Role: Platform engineer Goal: Define environment configuration, secrets management, and environment parity Constraints: Strategy document — no secrets or credentials in output

1. Define environments:

Environment	Purpose	Infrastructure	Data
Development	Local developer workflow	docker-compose, local volumes	Seed data, mocks for external APIs
Staging	Pre-production validation	Mirrors production topology	Anonymized production-like data
Production	Live system	Full infrastructure	Real data

2. Define environment variable management:
   • Reference .env.example created in Step 1
   • Per-environment variable sources (.env for dev, secret manager for staging/prod)
   • Validation: fail fast on missing required variables at startup
3. Define secrets management:
   • Never commit secrets to version control
   • Development: .env files (git-ignored)
   • Staging/Production: secret manager (AWS Secrets Manager / Azure Key Vault / Vault)
   • Rotation policy
4. Define database management per environment:
   • Development: Docker Postgres with named volume, seed data
   • Staging: managed Postgres, migrations applied via CI/CD
   • Production: managed Postgres, migrations require approval

Self-verification:

• All three environments defined with clear purpose
• Environment variable documentation complete (references .env.example from Step 1)
• No secrets in any output document
• Secret manager specified for staging/production
• Database strategy per environment

Save action: Write environment_strategy.md using templates/environment_strategy.md

---

Step 5: Observability

Role: Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) Goal: Define logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting strategy Constraints: Strategy document — describe what to implement, not how to wire it

1. Read architecture.md and component specs for service boundaries
2. Research observability best practices for the tech stack

Logging:

• Structured JSON to stdout/stderr (no file logging in containers)
• Fields: timestamp (ISO 8601), level, service, correlation_id, message, context
• Levels: ERROR (exceptions), WARN (degraded), INFO (business events), DEBUG (diagnostics, dev only)
• No PII in logs
• Retention: dev = console, staging = 7 days, production = 30 days

Metrics:

• Expose Prometheus-compatible /metrics endpoint per service
• System metrics: CPU, memory, disk, network
• Application metrics: request_count, request_duration (histogram), error_count, active_connections
• Business metrics: derived from acceptance criteria
• Collection interval: 15s

Distributed Tracing:

• OpenTelemetry SDK integration
• Trace context propagation via HTTP headers and message queue metadata
• Span naming: <service>.<operation>
• Sampling: 100% in dev/staging, 10% in production (adjust based on volume)

Alerting:

Severity	Response Time	Condition Examples
Critical	5 min	Service down, data loss, health check failed
High	30 min	Error rate > 5%, P95 latency > 2x baseline
Medium	4 hours	Disk > 80%, elevated latency
Low	Next business day	Non-critical warnings

Dashboards:

• Operations: service health, request rate, error rate, response time percentiles, resource utilization
• Business: key business metrics from acceptance criteria

Self-verification:

• Structured logging format defined with required fields
• Metrics endpoint specified per service
• OpenTelemetry tracing configured
• Alert severities with response times defined
• Dashboards cover operations and business metrics
• PII exclusion from logs addressed

Save action: Write observability.md using templates/observability.md

---

Step 6: Deployment Procedures

Role: DevOps / Platform engineer Goal: Define deployment strategy, rollback procedures, health checks, and deployment checklist Constraints: Procedures document — no implementation

1. Define deployment strategy:

   • Preferred pattern: blue-green / rolling / canary (choose based on architecture)
   • Zero-downtime requirement for production
   • Graceful shutdown: 30-second grace period for in-flight requests
   • Database migration ordering: migrate before deploy, backward-compatible only

2. Define health checks:

Check	Type	Endpoint	Interval	Threshold
Liveness	HTTP GET	/health/live	10s	3 failures → restart
Readiness	HTTP GET	/health/ready	5s	3 failures → remove from LB
Startup	HTTP GET	/health/ready	5s	30 attempts max

3. Define rollback procedures:

   • Trigger criteria: health check failures, error rate spike, critical alert
   • Rollback steps: redeploy previous image tag, verify health, rollback database if needed
   • Communication: notify stakeholders during rollback
   • Post-mortem: required after every production rollback

4. Define deployment checklist:

   • All tests pass in CI
   • Security scan clean (zero critical/high CVEs)
   • Database migrations reviewed and tested
   • Environment variables configured
   • Health check endpoints responding
   • Monitoring alerts configured
   • Rollback plan documented and tested
   • Stakeholders notified

Self-verification:

• Deployment strategy chosen and justified
• Zero-downtime approach specified
• Health checks defined (liveness, readiness, startup)
• Rollback trigger criteria and steps documented
• Deployment checklist complete

Save action: Write deployment_procedures.md using templates/deployment_procedures.md

BLOCKING: Present deployment procedures to user. Do NOT proceed until confirmed.

---

Step 7: Deployment Scripts

Role: DevOps / Platform engineer Goal: Create executable deployment scripts for pulling Docker images and running services on the remote target machine Constraints: Produce real, executable shell scripts. This is the ONLY step that creates implementation artifacts.

1. Read containerization.md and deployment_procedures.md from previous steps
2. Read .env.example for required variables
3. Create the following scripts in SCRIPTS_DIR/:

deploy.sh — Main deployment orchestrator:

• Validates that required environment variables are set (sources .env if present)
• Calls pull-images.sh, then stop-services.sh, then start-services.sh, then health-check.sh
• Exits with non-zero code on any failure
• Supports --rollback flag to redeploy previous image tags

pull-images.sh — Pull Docker images to target machine:

• Reads image list and tags from environment or config
• Authenticates with container registry
• Pulls all required images
• Verifies image integrity (digest check)

start-services.sh — Start services on target machine:

• Runs docker compose up -d or individual docker run commands
• Applies environment variables from .env
• Configures networks and volumes
• Waits for containers to reach healthy state

stop-services.sh — Graceful shutdown:

• Stops services with graceful shutdown period
• Saves current image tags for rollback reference
• Cleans up orphaned containers/networks

health-check.sh — Verify deployment health:

• Checks all health endpoints
• Reports status per service
• Returns non-zero if any service is unhealthy

4. All scripts must:

   • Be POSIX-compatible (#!/bin/bash with set -euo pipefail)
   • Source .env from project root or accept env vars from the environment
   • Include usage/help output (--help flag)
   • Be idempotent where possible
   • Handle SSH connection to remote target (configurable via DEPLOY_HOST env var)

5. Document all scripts in deploy_scripts.md

Self-verification:

• All five scripts created and executable
• Scripts source environment variables correctly
• deploy.sh orchestrates the full flow
• pull-images.sh handles registry auth and image pull
• start-services.sh starts containers with correct config
• stop-services.sh handles graceful shutdown
• health-check.sh validates all endpoints
• Rollback supported via deploy.sh --rollback
• Scripts work for remote deployment via SSH (DEPLOY_HOST)
• deploy_scripts.md documents all scripts

Save action: Write scripts to SCRIPTS_DIR/, write deploy_scripts.md using templates/deploy_scripts.md

---

Escalation Rules

Situation	Action
Unknown cloud provider or hosting	ASK user
Container registry not specified	ASK user
CI/CD platform preference unclear	ASK user — default to GitHub Actions
Secret manager not chosen	ASK user
Deployment pattern trade-offs	ASK user with recommendation
Missing architecture.md	STOP — run /plan first
Remote target machine details unknown	ASK user for SSH access, OS, and specs

Common Mistakes

• Implementing during planning: Steps 1–6 produce documents, not code (Step 7 is the exception — it creates scripts)
• Hardcoding secrets: never include real credentials in deployment documents or scripts
• Ignoring blackbox test containerization: the test environment must be containerized alongside the app
• Skipping BLOCKING gates: never proceed past a BLOCKING marker without user confirmation
• Using :latest tags: always pin base image versions
• Forgetting observability: logging, metrics, and tracing are deployment concerns, not post-deployment additions
• Committing .env: only .env.example goes to version control; .env must be in .gitignore
• Non-portable scripts: deployment scripts must work across environments; avoid hardcoded paths

Methodology Quick Reference

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│            Deployment Planning (7-Step Method)                  │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PREREQ: architecture.md + component specs exist                │
│                                                                │
│ 1. Status & Env     → reports/deploy_status_report.md          │
│                       + .env + .env.example                    │
│    [BLOCKING: user confirms status & env vars]                 │
│ 2. Containerization  → containerization.md                     │
│    [BLOCKING: user confirms Docker plan]                       │
│ 3. CI/CD Pipeline    → ci_cd_pipeline.md                       │
│ 4. Environment       → environment_strategy.md                 │
│ 5. Observability     → observability.md                        │
│ 6. Procedures        → deployment_procedures.md                │
│    [BLOCKING: user confirms deployment plan]                   │
│ 7. Scripts           → deploy_scripts.md + scripts/            │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Principles: Docker-first · IaC · Observability built-in        │
│             Environment parity · Save immediately              │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘