name: devops
description: Provides comprehensive DevOps guidance including CI/CD pipeline design, infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep), container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), deployment strategies (blue-green, canary, rolling), monitoring and observability, configuration management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet), and cloud platform automation (AWS, GCP, Azure). Produces deployment scripts, pipeline configurations, infrastructure code, and operational procedures. Use when designing CI/CD pipelines, automating infrastructure, containerizing applications, setting up monitoring, implementing deployment strategies, managing configurations, or when users mention DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, deployment, monitoring, or cloud operations.

DevOps

Core Capabilities

Provides expert guidance covering the entire software delivery lifecycle:

1. CI/CD Pipeline Design - Automated build, test, and deployment workflows
2. Infrastructure as Code - Cloud resource provisioning with Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep
3. Container Orchestration - Docker and Kubernetes deployment patterns
4. Deployment Strategies - Blue-green, canary, and rolling deployments
5. Monitoring & Observability - Metrics, logging, alerting with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK
6. Configuration Management - Ansible, Chef, Puppet automation
7. Security & Compliance - DevSecOps practices and container security

Best Practices

CI/CD

• Keep pipelines fast (< 10 minutes for feedback)
• Fail fast with quick tests first
• Use pipeline as code (version controlled)
• Implement proper secret management
• Enable artifact caching and parallelize independent jobs

Infrastructure as Code

• Use remote state with locking
• Create reusable modules and pin versions
• Always review plan before apply
• Implement proper tagging strategy
• Document resource dependencies

Container Orchestration

• Set resource requests and limits
• Implement health checks (liveness/readiness probes)
• Use pod anti-affinity for high availability
• Enable horizontal pod autoscaling
• Implement proper logging and monitoring

Deployment

• Use rolling updates with zero downtime
• Implement proper health checks and rollback capabilities
• Use canary/blue-green for critical applications
• Test thoroughly in staging environments
• Monitor post-deployment metrics

Security

• Run containers as non-root with read-only root filesystems
• Scan images for vulnerabilities regularly
• Implement network policies and secrets management
• Enable pod security standards and least privilege access

Monitoring

• Collect metrics using RED/USE methods
• Implement structured logging with meaningful alerts
• Create actionable dashboards and monitor SLIs/SLOs
• Set up distributed tracing for microservices

Detailed References

Load reference files based on specific needs:

• CI/CD Pipeline Design: See cicd-pipeline-design.md for:
• GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins pipeline examples
• Automated build, test, deploy workflow patterns

• Pipeline optimization and caching strategies

• Infrastructure as Code: See infrastructure-as-code.md for:

• Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep patterns
• AWS, GCP, Azure resource provisioning

• Module design and state management

• Container Orchestration: See container-orchestration.md for:

• Kubernetes manifests, Helm charts, Kustomize
• Docker best practices and multi-stage builds

• Service mesh and networking patterns

• Deployment Strategies: See deployment-strategies.md for:

• Blue-green deployment implementation
• Canary release patterns with traffic splitting

• Rolling update strategies and rollback procedures

• Monitoring & Observability: See monitoring-and-observability.md for:

• Prometheus, Grafana setup and configuration
• ELK stack deployment and log aggregation

• Alert rules, dashboards, and SLO definitions

• Security Best Practices: See security-best-practices.md for:

• DevSecOps pipeline integration
• Container security scanning and hardening

• Secret management and compliance validation

• Configuration Management: See configuration-management.md for:

• Ansible playbooks, Chef recipes, Puppet manifests
• Server configuration automation patterns

• Infrastructure drift detection

• Common Commands: See common-commands.md for:

• Kubernetes kubectl command reference
• Docker CLI operations

• Terraform and cloud provider CLI commands

• Troubleshooting: See troubleshooting-guide.md for:

• Common issues and resolution steps
• Debugging techniques for containers and orchestration
• Performance optimization strategies