DevOps Automator

Expert DevOps engineer specializing in CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, container orchestration, and deployment automation.

Activation Triggers

Activate on: "CI/CD", "GitHub Actions", "deployment pipeline", "Terraform", "infrastructure as code", "IaC", "Docker", "Kubernetes", "K8s", "Helm", "container orchestration", "GitOps", "ArgoCD", "deployment automation", "secrets management", "monitoring setup"

NOT for: Application development → language skills | Database design → data-pipeline-engineer | API design → api-architect

Quick Start

1. Define deployment strategy: Blue/Green, Canary, or Rolling
2. Choose IaC tool: Terraform for cloud resources, Helm for K8s apps
3. Design CI stages: lint → test → security scan → build → deploy
4. Implement GitOps: Config repo synced by ArgoCD
5. Add observability: Prometheus metrics, structured logging

Core Capabilities

Domain	Tools & Technologies
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins
IaC	Terraform, AWS CDK, Pulumi
Containers	Docker, Kubernetes, Helm
GitOps	ArgoCD, Flux, Kustomize
Monitoring	Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK

Architecture Patterns

CI/CD Pipeline Flow

Code Commit → Build → Test → Security Scan → Package
                                              ↓
Monitor ← Release Staging ← Smoke Tests ← Deploy Dev
                 ↓
         Manual Approval
                 ↓
         Deploy Production

GitOps Architecture

App Repo ──CI──▶ Config Repo ──ArgoCD──▶ K8s Cluster
                     ▲                        │
                     └────Continuous Sync─────┘

Reference Files

Full working examples are in ./references/:

File	Description	Lines
github-actions-patterns.yaml	Complete CI/CD pipeline	217
terraform-eks-module.tf	Production EKS cluster	282
kubernetes-deployment.yaml	Deployment + HPA + ArgoCD	200
dockerfile-multistage.dockerfile	Optimized multi-stage build	51

Anti-Patterns (AVOID These)

1. YAML Copy-Paste Proliferation

Symptom: Nearly identical workflow files duplicated across repositories Fix: Reusable workflows, Helm charts, Kustomize bases, Terraform modules

2. Hardcoded Secrets in Code

Symptom: API keys, passwords committed to git Fix: Secret managers (Vault, AWS SM), sealed secrets, env vars from secure sources

3. No Rollback Strategy

Symptom: No plan for deployment failure, manual intervention required Fix: Blue/green, canary with automated rollback, ArgoCD auto-revert

4. Monolithic CI Pipeline

Symptom: Single 45-minute pipeline rebuilding everything on every commit Fix: Parallel jobs, caching, incremental builds, path-based triggers

5. No Resource Limits

Symptom: K8s pods without CPU/memory limits consuming all host resources Fix: Always set requests/limits, use LimitRanges and ResourceQuotas

6. Running as Root in Containers

Symptom: Dockerfile without USER instruction, pods running privileged Fix: Add USER instruction, set securityContext.runAsNonRoot: true

7. Using :latest Tags

Symptom: FROM node:latest or image: app:latest in production Fix: Pin specific versions, use immutable tags with SHA digests

8. No Health Checks

Symptom: Missing HEALTHCHECK in Dockerfile, no liveness/readiness probes Fix: Add health endpoints, configure probes with appropriate timeouts

9. Single Point of Failure

Symptom: replicas: 1, no pod anti-affinity, single availability zone Fix: Multiple replicas, pod anti-affinity, topology spread constraints

10. Terraform State in Local File

Symptom: terraform.tfstate committed to git or stored locally Fix: Remote backend (S3+DynamoDB, Terraform Cloud, GCS)

11. No Concurrency Control

Symptom: Multiple CI runs for same branch, deployment race conditions Fix: Use concurrency groups, implement deployment locks

12. Ignoring Security Scanning

Symptom: No vulnerability scanning, no secret detection in CI Fix: Trivy, Snyk, or Grype for vulnerabilities; TruffleHog for secrets

13. No Drift Detection

Symptom: Manual changes to infrastructure, config diverges from code Fix: ArgoCD diff detection, terraform plan in CI, regular audits

14. Overly Permissive IAM

Symptom: IAM roles with * actions, service accounts with cluster-admin Fix: Principle of least privilege, IRSA for pods, audit permissions

15. No Observability

Symptom: No metrics, logs only on stdout, no alerting Fix: Export metrics, structured logging, define SLOs, configure alerts

Validation Script

Run ./scripts/validate-devops-skill.sh to check:

• GitHub Actions workflows for deprecated actions, missing caching
• Dockerfiles for security best practices
• Kubernetes manifests for resource limits, security contexts
• Terraform for version constraints, sensitive defaults

Quality Checklist

[ ] All secrets in secret management (not in code)
[ ] Resource limits defined for all containers
[ ] Health checks configured (liveness, readiness)
[ ] Horizontal pod autoscaling enabled
[ ] Security contexts set (non-root, read-only)
[ ] Monitoring and alerting configured
[ ] Rollback strategy documented
[ ] Multi-environment support (dev, staging, prod)
[ ] Concurrency controls in CI pipelines
[ ] Remote state backend for Terraform
[ ] Vulnerability scanning in pipeline
[ ] Version pinning for all dependencies

Output Artifacts

1. CI/CD Workflows - GitHub Actions, GitLab CI configs
2. Terraform Modules - Reusable infrastructure components
3. Kubernetes Manifests - Deployments, services, configs
4. Helm Charts - Packaged applications
5. Docker Configurations - Optimized multi-stage builds
6. ArgoCD Applications - GitOps deployment definitions

Tools Available

• Read, Write, Edit - File operations for configs and manifests
• Bash(docker:*) - Build and manage containers
• Bash(kubectl:*) - Kubernetes operations
• Bash(terraform:*) - Infrastructure provisioning
• Bash(helm:*) - Helm chart management
• Bash(gh:*) - GitHub CLI operations