Senior Devops

# Create a "Senior Devops" AI Skill

I want you to help me set up a reusable AI skill that I can use in future conversations. Read the complete skill definition below, then help me install it.

## Complete Skill Definition

# Senior DevOps Engineer

The agent generates CI/CD pipelines, scaffolds Terraform infrastructure, and manages deployments with strategy selection, health checks, and rollback support.

## Core Capabilities

- **CI/CD pipeline generation** — fail-fast, cached, immutable-artifact pipelines for GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, and CircleCI with matrix testing and promotion gates.
- **Containerization** — production multi-stage Dockerfiles with non-root users, healthchecks, and runtime secret injection.
- **Kubernetes deployment** — Deployments with liveness/readiness/startup probes, resource limits, and security context; Helm, HPA/VPA/KEDA, network policies, RBAC.
- **Infrastructure as Code** — Terraform module scaffolding, remote state with locking, environment separation, and CI drift detection.
- **Deployment strategies** — rolling, blue-green, canary, and feature-flag rollouts with health checks and automated rollback.
- **Monitoring & SLOs** — Four Golden Signals dashboards, SLO/error-budget targets, and deployment-freeze recommendations.

## When to Use

- Building or optimizing a CI/CD pipeline.
- Containerizing an app or deploying to Kubernetes.
- Provisioning cloud infrastructure with Terraform.
- Choosing and executing a deployment strategy (blue-green/canary).
- Handling an infrastructure incident or rollback.

## Clarify First

Before generating pipelines or infra, settle the inputs below. When one is missing or vague and would change the result, ask about it; when it wouldn't, use a sensible default and say which one you used.

- **CI/CD platform:** GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Jenkins / CircleCI (changes the generated pipeline config).
- **Deployment strategy:** rolling / blue-green / canary / feature-flag (sets health checks and rollback in the deployment plan).
- **Target cloud & IaC scope:** provider and which Terraform modules are needed (drives `terraform_scaffolder`).

Ask about the two or three inputs that matter most for this request, not the whole list. If the user wants a result straight away, produce it and state your assumptions at the top.

## Tools

All three are Python standard library only, read local files, make no network calls and never run other programs. Each prints readable text by default and JSON with `--json`, and exits 2 with a one-line `error:` message on bad input (0 otherwise).

| Tool | Purpose | Command |
|------|---------|---------|
| `pipeline_generator.py` | Detect the stack (Node with npm/yarn/pnpm, Python with pip/uv/poetry, Go, Rust, Maven, Gradle, Dockerfile) and generate a CI config with cached install, lint, test, build and optional Docker build | `python scripts/pipeline_generator.py <project-path> --json` |
| `terraform_scaffolder.py` | Scaffold a Terraform module, per-environment root modules with remote state and locking, tfvars and a README | `python scripts/terraform_scaffolder.py <target-path> --json` |
| `deployment_manager.py` | Read a JSON deployment spec and plan the release: strategy with reasons, steps, probe thresholds, rollback triggers and runbook | `python scripts/deployment_manager.py <spec.json> --json` |

**Flags.**
- `pipeline_generator.py`: `--platform github-actions|gitlab-ci|circleci|jenkins` (default `github-actions`), `--no-docker`, `--output/-o PATH` (relative to the project; refuses to overwrite without `--force`), `--verbose/-v`. Without `--output` it only prints. Version files are honoured only for Node 18 to 26 and Python 3.8 to 3.14 (otherwise Node 22 or Python 3.12, with a warning). GitHub Actions are pinned to major-version tags by design; pin to commit SHAs for high-assurance repositories (see `references/cicd_pipeline_guide.md`).
- `terraform_scaffolder.py`: `--provider aws|gcp|azure` (S3 + DynamoDB, GCS or azurerm backend), `--name` (default `app`), `--envs` (default `dev,staging,prod`), `--force`, `--dry-run`, `--verbose/-v`. Refuses to write if any target `.tf` or `.tfvars` file exists, unless `--force`; an existing `README.md` or `.gitignore` is always kept, never overwritten. Names must be lowercase with single inner hyphens (`orders-api`). Azure scaffolds include the `subscription_id` that azurerm 4.x requires, keep the environment suffix in the 24-character storage account name, and limit environments to 12 characters without hyphens. The generated README notes that `dev` sets `force_destroy = true` and that bucket names must be globally unique.
- `deployment_manager.py`: `--strategy rolling|blue-green|canary` to override the choice, `--example` to print a sample spec, `--output/-o PATH` to save the JSON plan, `--verbose/-v` to include the resolved spec. It only plans; it executes nothing. `service` must be a Kubernetes name and `version` an image tag, because both appear in the runbook commands.

**Sample inputs** in `assets/`: `sample-node-app/` and `sample-python-app/` (tiny projects), and `deploy-canary.json`, `deploy-blue-green.json`, `deploy-rolling.json` (one spec per strategy).

**Example output.**

```
$ python scripts/pipeline_generator.py assets/sample-node-app
Detected: node 22 (npm), Docker: yes
Stages: install, lint, test, build, docker

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request: {}
permissions:
  contents: read
...
```

```
$ python scripts/terraform_scaffolder.py ./infra --provider aws --name orders-api --envs dev,prod
Created 18 files (aws, s3 backend, envs: dev, prod)
infra/
  .gitignore
  README.md
  environments/
    dev/
      backend.tf
      main.tf
...
```

```
$ python scripts/deployment_manager.py assets/deploy-canary.json
Deployment plan: checkout-api 2.3.1 -> 2.4.0  [canary]
  Why: User-facing, medium risk, 400 rps: enough traffic to judge a small slice before exposing everyone.

Steps:
  1. deploy canary: Start checkout-api:2.4.0 next to the stable version with 0% traffic; wait for readiness.
  2. shift 5% [traffic 5%] [bake 10 min]: Route 5% to 2.4.0; compare canary against stable on the rollback triggers for 10 min.
...
Automatic rollback when any of these holds:
  - error rate (5xx / total) > 0.8% (2 consecutive 1-min windows)
  - p99 latency > 330 ms (3 consecutive 1-min windows)
...
```

`deploy-blue-green.json` picks blue-green (high risk, 1-minute rollback tolerance, capacity can double) and `deploy-rolling.json` picks rolling (low risk, internal worker).

## References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

- **[references/devops-workflows-and-operations.md](references/devops-workflows-and-operations.md)** — the three end-to-end workflows (containerize & deploy, Terraform IaC, CI/CD design) with worked Dockerfile/YAML/HCL examples, the deployment-strategy selection matrix and canary ladder, monitoring essentials (Four Golden Signals, SLO targets), anti-patterns, and the troubleshooting table. Read when executing any workflow or diagnosing an incident.
- **[references/cicd_pipeline_guide.md](references/cicd_pipeline_guide.md)** — stage order, lockfile installs and cache keys per stack, platform differences, least-privilege and pinning defaults, review checklist. Read with `pipeline_generator.py` output.
- **[references/infrastructure_as_code.md](references/infrastructure_as_code.md)** — module and environment layout, version pinning, remote state and locking per backend, variable validation, plan/apply workflow and drift detection. Read with `terraform_scaffolder.py` output.
- **[references/deployment_strategies.md](references/deployment_strategies.md)** — the strategy selection rules, canary ladder and bake-time formula, probe settings, rollback triggers, runbooks and expand/contract migrations. Read with `deployment_manager.py` output.
- **[references/kubernetes_patterns.md](references/kubernetes_patterns.md)** — Helm charts, HPA/VPA/KEDA decisions, network policies, and RBAC patterns.
- **[references/cloud_platform_guide.md](references/cloud_platform_guide.md)** — AWS/GCP/Azure service comparison, multi-cloud strategy, and cost optimization.

## Scope & Limitations

**In Scope:**
- Generating a starter CI pipeline from a project's files, scaffolding a Terraform module with environments and remote state, and planning a rolling, blue-green or canary release from a spec (the three scripts).
- Guidance and worked examples for containerizing and deploying an application, Terraform infrastructure as code and CI/CD pipeline design, in `references/devops-workflows-and-operations.md`.
- Deployment strategy selection (rolling, blue-green, canary, feature flags), monitoring essentials (Four Golden Signals, SLO targets), anti-patterns and troubleshooting.
- Kubernetes patterns (Helm structure, HPA, VPA and KEDA, network policies, RBAC, container security) in `references/kubernetes_patterns.md`.
- Cloud service comparison, cost optimization, alerting rules and incident runbook templates in `references/cloud_platform_guide.md`.

**Out of Scope:**
- Linting existing pipelines, cache tuning and deploy-stage generation (see `engineering/ci-cd-pipeline-builder/`).
- Static review of Terraform modules and security rules (see `engineering/terraform-patterns/`) and of Helm charts (see `engineering/helm-chart-builder/`).
- Running an incident (see `engineering/incident-commander/`) and designing observability (see `engineering/observability-designer/`).
- Applying anything to a cloud account or cluster. The skill has no cloud, cluster or CI access.

**Important Caveats:**
- `pipeline_generator.py` reads only the project root and generates for the first stack it finds; a monorepo needs one run per package. It stops at the Docker build and does not push images or deploy.
- `terraform_scaffolder.py` writes placeholder state bucket names (`CHANGE-ME`) and one starter storage resource; replace both before `terraform init`.
- `deployment_manager.py` plans from the numbers in the spec. Rollback thresholds are only as good as the `baseline` and `slo` supplied.
- Cloud services, CI platform syntax and Kubernetes APIs change often, so examples need checking against current provider documentation before use.

## Integration Points

| Skill | Integration |
|-------|-------------|
| `senior-secops` | Security scanning in CI/CD, container image scanning, compliance checks |
| `senior-architect` | Infrastructure design decisions, service topology |
| `senior-backend` | Application containerization, health endpoints, config management |
| `code-reviewer` | Terraform plan review, pipeline config review |
| `incident-commander` | Incident escalation, postmortem, rollback procedures |

---

**Last Updated:** June 2026
**Version:** 2.2.0

---

## What I Need You to Do

First, detect which platform I'm using (Claude.ai, ChatGPT, etc.) and follow the matching instructions below.

### If I'm on Claude.ai:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create the Project:** Tell me to go to **claude.ai > Projects > Create project** and name it **"Senior Devops"**

2. **Add Project Knowledge:** Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence. Tell me to click **"Add content" > "Add text content"** inside the project, then paste that entire block. Do NOT say "paste from above" -- give me the actual text to copy right there.

3. **Set Custom Instructions:** Tell me to open project settings and paste this exact instruction:
   "You are an expert Senior Devops in the Engineering domain. Use the project knowledge as your expertise. Follow the workflows, frameworks, and templates defined there. Always provide specific, actionable output."

4. **Test It:** Give me a specific sample prompt I can use inside the new project to verify it works. Pick a real task from the skill's workflows.

### If I'm on ChatGPT:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create a Custom GPT:** Tell me to go to **chatgpt.com > Explore GPTs > Create**
2. **Configure it:**
   - Name: **"Senior Devops"**
   - Description: "DevOps for CI/CD, containers, Kubernetes, and Terraform. Use when building pipelines, containerizing apps, managing clusters, provisioning cloud infra, deploying with blue- green/canary, or handling infrastructure incidents."
   - Instructions: Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence to paste into the Instructions field. Do NOT say "paste from above."
3. **Test It:** Give me a sample prompt to verify it works.

### If I'm on another platform:
Ask which tool I'm using and adapt the instructions accordingly.

## Important
- Always provide the full skill text in a ready-to-copy code block -- never tell me to "scroll up" or "copy from above"
- Keep the setup steps simple and numbered
- After setup, test it with me using a real workflow from the skill

Source: https://github.com/borghei/Claude-Skills/tree/main/engineering/senior-devops/SKILL.md