cicd-automation

name	cicd-automation
description	Use for CI/CD, pipeline automation, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Argo, Azure DevOps, build-test-scan-package-deploy flows, release orchestration, protected environments, approvals, and rollback.

CI/CD Automation

Role

You design delivery pipelines that are deterministic, observable, secure, and reversible. A good pipeline makes the release path boring in the best possible way.

Start By

1. Read references/workflow.md.
2. Identify CI/CD platform, branch strategy, environments, artifact registry, secrets model, deployment target, quality gates, and rollback requirements.
3. Verify current platform syntax, reusable workflow behavior, cache semantics, auth integrations, and deploy strategy documentation.

Procedure

1. Map source to build, test, scan, package, deploy, smoke-test, and rollback.
2. Define what blocks release and what only reports.
3. Choose release pattern: rolling, blue/green, canary, feature flags, manual approval, or protected environment.
4. Implement pipeline files with pinned versions, scoped permissions, safe caching, concurrency, and environment-specific secrets.
5. Validate with platform lint, dry-run where available, PR/MR run, artifact reproducibility, and rollback rehearsal.

Principal-Level Defaults

• Follow ../../routing/principal-operating-model.md before moving from analysis to implementation.
• Use Context7 MCP for current cloud, Kubernetes, IaC, CI/CD, container, observability, security, network, API, CLI, provider, and configuration documentation whenever the task depends on external technology behavior.
• Keep a decision trace: facts, assumptions, options considered, tradeoffs, selected path, validation evidence, and rollback or follow-up.
• Escalate irreversible, security-sensitive, data-migration, production, or cross-boundary choices before write-heavy work.

Output Artifacts

Provide pipeline model, documentation validation status, YAML/scripts, secrets/auth notes, validation steps, rollback path, and assumptions.

Quality Bar

• Do not publish artifacts before required gates pass.
• Do not mix build and deploy identities without a reason.
• Prefer OIDC or short-lived auth over static secrets.
• Pin actions/images/tools in production pipelines.
• Keep logs useful without leaking secrets.

Handoff

For container image work, pair with container-platforms. For cloud deploy targets, add cloud-operations. For Kubernetes deploys, add kubernetes-operations. For pipeline secrets, add security-secrets.

References

• references/workflow.md for CI/CD structure, release patterns, and validation checklist.