org/skills/sdlc/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
sdlc	Software development lifecycle for GroomBook. Covers Gitea authentication, branch strategy across Dev/UAT/Prod, the SDLC pipeline phases, PR review and merge policy, infrastructure layout, the Gitea-origin issue board-approval gate, the cc-cpfarhood visibility rule, and delegation model tier policy.

Software Development Lifecycle

Gitea authentication

Use the GITEA_TOKEN environment variable for all Gitea operations. It is already set in the agent environment. Use the tea CLI for all Gitea/Git operations (e.g., tea issue list, tea pr create). The token expires when the environment variable is rotated — re-invoke any Gitea operation if you get a 401.

Gitea is the primary source of truth. Every Paperclip issue must have a corresponding Gitea issue (create one if missing). Both stay open until the work is completed, reviewed, approved, merged, and QA-verified.

Branch strategy

Three long-lived branches map to the three deployment environments:

Branch	Environment	Who merges	Prerequisites for merge
dev	Dev	Engineer	CI passes
uat	UAT	Engineer	QA code review approval
main	Production	Engineer	UAT validation & CTO code review

Engineers always target dev first — never uat or main directly.

• Feature branches: <agent-name>/<short-description>.

Pull requests

All changes happen via pull request. Always include cc @cpfarhood at the bottom of the PR body for visibility — never as a reviewer.

tea pr create --base dev --title "..." --body "... cc @cpfarhood"

Gitea branch protection requires CI checks to pass.

SDLC pipeline

Phase 1 — Dev

1. Engineer branches from dev, writes code.
2. Engineer opens a PR against dev.
3. CI fail → back to Engineer.
4. CI pass → Engineer merges PR.
5. CI builds and deploys automatically to Dev (https://dev.groombook.dev).

Phase 2 — UAT promotion

1. Engineer opens a PR from dev to uat.
2. CI fail → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
3. CI pass → QA performs code review.
4. QA rejected → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
5. QA approved → Engineer merges PR.
6. CI builds and deploys automatically to UAT (https://uat.groombook.dev).

Phase 3 — User Testing & Security Review

1. UAT (Shedward Scissorhands) runs full regression against UAT — every feature, old and new, no exceptions.
2. UAT fail → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
3. UAT pass → Security Engineer performs a security code review of the changes.
4. Security fail → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
5. Security pass → Engineer opens a PR from uat to main.
6. CI fail → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
7. CI pass → Begin Phase 4.

Phase 4 — Production

1. CTO performs code review.
2. CTO approved → Engineer merges PR.
3. CTO rejected → back to Engineer (return to Phase 1).
4. CI deploys automatically to Production (https://demo.groombook.dev).

Infrastructure

• Production: namespace groombook, FQDN demo.groombook.dev
• UAT: namespace groombook-uat, FQDN uat.groombook.dev
• Dev: namespace groombook-dev, FQDN dev.groombook.dev
• Cluster: Kubernetes — cluster-wide read; read/write on groombook-dev and groombook-uat; read-only on groombook (production).
• Gateways: istio-external (public) and istio-internal (internal) in gateway-system.
• Container registry: git.farh.net/groombook/<service> only.

Authentication

• Framework: Better-Auth.
• OAuth Providers: GroomBook (Authentik), Google, and Apple.
• SSO: Authentik OIDC at https://auth.farh.net (credentials in authentik-credentials secret).
• Never build custom authentication.

Deployment — 2-stage Flux GitOps

Stage 1 — CI (runs in each application repo):

• Triggered automatically on every merge to main
• Builds and tags the Docker image: CalVer (YYYY.MM.DD[.N]), latest, and sha-<hash>
• Pushes tagged images to git.farh.net/groombook/<service>
• Creates a CalVer git tag in the source repo

Stage 2 — GitOps (Flux, managed externally):

• Flux watches groombook/infra as the target GitRepository — it is not a Flux bootstrap/cluster repo and must never be treated as one.
• Reconciles Kustomize overlays: apps/overlays/dev → groombook-dev, apps/overlays/uat → groombook-uat, apps/overlays/prod → groombook.
• Images currently use :latest with imagePullPolicy: Always; pin to a CalVer tag in the infra overlay when stabilizing a release.

Policy — Flux Image Tag Automation is DENIED. Do NOT use ImageRepository, ImagePolicy, or ImageUpdateAutomation Flux resources. Image tag updates must be made intentionally via a PR to groombook/infra.

To deploy a change:

1. Merge code to main in the app repo — CI builds and pushes a new image automatically.
2. Open a PR against groombook/infra to update the relevant overlay; merge after kustomize CI passes.
3. Flux reconciles groombook/infra on merge and rolls out the updated pods.

To force a rollout without a manifest change:

kubectl rollout restart deployment/<name> -n <namespace>

Infrastructure as Code

Terraform (OpenTofu) is deployed via the Flux OpenTofu Controller in a GitOps fashion. Submit Terraform configurations via a PR to groombook/infra — the tofu controller reconciles them on merge.

Never run tofu directly. Never kubectl apply against production. Production changes go through Flux only. The groombook-dev and groombook-uat namespaces permit direct kubectl use for troubleshooting and iteration.

Tools (canonical, not alternatives)

These are the only acceptable choices — alternatives are policy violations:

• Secret management: Bitnami Sealed Secrets Controller — no plain Kubernetes secrets.
• Database: CloudNativePG Operator (Postgres) — no SQLite, MariaDB, or MySQL.
• Cache / pub-sub: DragonflyDB Operator — no Redis.
• Authentication: Better-Auth + Google + Apple + Authentik (see Authentication section). Never build custom auth.
• Dependency updates: Mend Renovate. Dependabot is not used and will not be used. Do not configure it.
• Container registry: git.farh.net/groombook/<service> — no Docker Hub for first-party images.
• Browser automation: the playwright MCP server (http://playwright:8931/mcp). Target dev only — never test production.

External communication

When communicating in any context visible outside the GroomBook agent team (external users, human reviewers, non-agent entities), include cc @cpfarhood for visibility — never as a reviewer.