DevOps Engineering — Quick Reference
This skill equips teams with actionable templates, checklists, and patterns for building self-service platforms, automating infrastructure with GitOps, deploying securely with DevSecOps, scaling with Kubernetes, ensuring reliability through SRE practices, and operating production systems with strong observability.
Modern baseline (2026): IaC (Terraform/OpenTofu/Pulumi), GitOps (Argo CD/Flux), Kubernetes (follow upstream supported releases), OpenTelemetry + Prometheus/Grafana, supply-chain security (SBOM + signing + provenance), policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper or Kyverno), and eBPF-powered networking/security/observability (e.g., Cilium + Tetragon).
Quick Reference Task Tool/Framework Command When to Use Infrastructure as Code Terraform / OpenTofu terraform plan && terraform apply Provision cloud resources declaratively GitOps Deployment Argo CD / Flux argocd app sync myapp Continuous reconciliation, declarative deployments Container Build Docker Engine docker build -t app:v1 . Package applications with dependencies Kubernetes Deployment kubectl / Helm (Kubernetes) kubectl apply -f deploy.yaml / helm upgrade app ./chart Deploy to K8s cluster, manage releases CI/CD Pipeline GitHub Actions Define workflow in .github/workflows/ci.yml Automated testing, building, deploying Security Scanning Trivy / Falco / Tetragon trivy image myapp:latest Vulnerability scanning, runtime security, eBPF enforcement Monitoring & Alerts Prometheus + Grafana Configure ServiceMonitor and AlertManager Observability, SLO tracking, incident alerts Load Testing k6 / Locust k6 run load-test.js Performance validation, capacity planning Incident Response PagerDuty / Opsgenie Configure escalation policies On-call management, automated escalation Platform Engineering Backstage / Port Deploy internal developer portal Self-service infrastructure, golden paths Decision Tree: Choosing DevOps Approach What do you need to accomplish? ├─ Infrastructure provisioning? │ ├─ Cloud-agnostic → Terraform or OpenTofu (OSS fork) │ ├─ Programming-first → Pulumi (TypeScript/Python/Go) │ ├─ AWS-specific → CloudFormation or Terraform/OpenTofu │ ├─ GCP-specific → Deployment Manager or Terraform/OpenTofu │ └─ Azure-specific → ARM/Bicep or Terraform/OpenTofu │ ├─ Application deployment? │ ├─ Kubernetes cluster? │ │ ├─ Simple deploy → kubectl apply -f manifests/ │ │ ├─ Complex app → Helm charts │ │ └─ GitOps workflow → ArgoCD or FluxCD │ └─ Serverless? │ ├─ AWS → Lambda + SAM/Serverless Framework │ ├─ GCP → Cloud Functions │ └─ Azure → Azure Functions │ ├─ CI/CD pipeline setup? │ ├─ GitHub-based → GitHub Actions (template-github-actions.md) │ ├─ GitLab-based → GitLab CI │ ├─ Enterprise → Jenkins or Tekton │ └─ Security-first → Add SAST/DAST/SCA scans (template-ci-cd.md) │ ├─ Observability & monitoring? │ ├─ Metrics → Prometheus + Grafana │ ├─ Distributed tracing → Jaeger or OpenTelemetry │ ├─ Logs → Loki or ELK stack │ ├─ eBPF-based → Cilium + Hubble (sidecarless) │ └─ Unified platform → Datadog or New Relic │ ├─ Incident management? │ ├─ On-call rotation → PagerDuty or Opsgenie │ ├─ Postmortem → template-postmortem.md │ └─ Communication → template-incident-comm.md │ ├─ Platform engineering? │ ├─ Self-service → Backstage or Port (internal developer portal) │ ├─ Policy enforcement → OPA/Gatekeeper │ └─ Golden paths → Template repositories + automation │ └─ Security hardening? ├─ Container scanning → Trivy or Grype ├─ Runtime security → Falco or Sysdig ├─ Secrets management → HashiCorp Vault or cloud-native KMS └─ Compliance → CIS Benchmarks, template-security-hardening.md
When to Use This Skill
Claude should invoke this skill when users request:
Platform engineering patterns (self-service developer platforms, internal tools) GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, FluxCD, declarative infrastructure management) Infrastructure as Code patterns (Terraform, K8s manifests, policy as code) CI/CD pipelines with DevSecOps (GitHub Actions, security scanning, SAST/DAST/SCA) SRE incident management, escalation, and postmortem templates eBPF-based observability (Cilium, Hubble, kernel-level insights, OpenTelemetry) Kubernetes operational patterns (day-2 operations, resource management, workload placement) Cloud-native monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana, unified observability platforms) Team workflow, communication, handover guides, and runbooks Resources (Best Practices Guides)
Operational best practices by domain:
DevOps/SRE Operations: references/devops-best-practices.md - Core patterns for safe infrastructure changes, deployments, and incident response Platform Engineering: references/platform-engineering-patterns.md - Self-service platforms, golden paths, internal developer portals, policy as code GitOps Workflows: references/gitops-workflows.md - Continuous reconciliation, multi-environment promotion, ArgoCD/FluxCD patterns, progressive delivery SRE Incident Management: references/sre-incident-management.md - Severity classification, escalation procedures, blameless postmortems, alert correlation, and runbooks Operational Standards: references/operational-patterns.md - Platform engineering blueprints, CI/CD safety, SLOs, and reliability drills
Each guide includes:
Checklists for completeness and safety Common anti-patterns and remediations Step-by-step patterns for safe rollout, rollback, and verification Decision matrices (e.g., deployment, escalation, monitoring strategy) Real-world examples and edge case handling Templates (Copy-Paste Ready)
Production templates organized by tech stack:
AWS Cloud assets/aws/template-aws-ops.md - AWS service operations and best practices assets/aws/template-aws-terraform.md - Terraform modules for AWS infrastructure assets/aws/template-cost-optimization.md - AWS cost optimization strategies GCP Cloud assets/gcp/template-gcp-ops.md - GCP service operations assets/gcp/template-gcp-terraform.md - Terraform modules for GCP Azure Cloud assets/azure/template-azure-ops.md - Azure service operations Kubernetes assets/kubernetes/template-kubernetes-ops.md - Day-to-day K8s operations assets/kubernetes/template-ha-dr.md - High availability and disaster recovery assets/kubernetes/template-platform-api.md - Platform API patterns assets/kubernetes/template-k8s-deploy.yaml - Deployment manifests Docker assets/docker/template-docker-ops.md - Container build, security, and operations Kafka assets/kafka/template-kafka-ops.md - Kafka cluster operations and streaming Terraform & IaC assets/terraform-iac/template-iac-terraform.md - Infrastructure as Code patterns assets/terraform-iac/template-module.md - Reusable Terraform modules assets/terraform-iac/template-env-promotion.md - Environment promotion strategies CI/CD Pipelines assets/cicd-pipelines/template-ci-cd.md - General CI/CD patterns assets/cicd-pipelines/template-github-actions.md - GitHub Actions workflows assets/cicd-pipelines/template-gitops.md - GitOps deployment patterns assets/cicd-pipelines/template-release-safety.md - Safe release practices Monitoring & Observability assets/monitoring-observability/template-slo.md - Service level objectives assets/monitoring-observability/template-alert-rules.md - Alert configuration assets/monitoring-observability/template-observability-slo.md - Observability patterns assets/monitoring-observability/template-loadtest-perf.md - Load testing and performance Incident Response assets/incident-response/template-postmortem.md - Incident postmortems assets/incident-response/template-runbook-starter.md - Runbook starter template assets/incident-response/template-incident-comm.md - Incident communication assets/incident-response/template-incident-response.md - Incident response procedures Security assets/security/template-security-hardening.md - Security hardening checklists Navigation
Resources
references/operational-patterns.md references/sre-incident-management.md references/devops-best-practices.md references/platform-engineering-patterns.md references/gitops-workflows.md
Shared Utilities (Centralized patterns — extract, don't duplicate)
../software-clean-code-standard/utilities/config-validation.md — Zod 3.24+, secrets management (Vault, 1Password, Doppler) ../software-clean-code-standard/utilities/resilience-utilities.md — p-retry v6, circuit breaker, OTel spans ../software-clean-code-standard/utilities/logging-utilities.md — pino v9 + OpenTelemetry integration ../software-clean-code-standard/utilities/observability-utilities.md — OpenTelemetry SDK, tracing, metrics ../software-clean-code-standard/utilities/testing-utilities.md — Test factories, fixtures, mocks ../software-clean-code-standard/references/clean-code-standard.md — Canonical clean code rules (CC-*) for citation
Templates
assets/incident-response/template-postmortem.md assets/incident-response/template-runbook-starter.md assets/incident-response/template-incident-comm.md assets/incident-response/template-incident-response.md assets/docker/template-docker-ops.md assets/security/template-security-hardening.md assets/azure/template-azure-ops.md assets/gcp/template-gcp-terraform.md assets/gcp/template-gcp-ops.md assets/cicd-pipelines/template-release-safety.md assets/cicd-pipelines/template-gitops.md assets/cicd-pipelines/template-ci-cd.md assets/cicd-pipelines/template-github-actions.md assets/kafka/template-kafka-ops.md assets/aws/template-aws-terraform.md assets/aws/template-aws-ops.md assets/aws/template-cost-optimization.md assets/monitoring-observability/template-slo.md assets/monitoring-observability/template-loadtest-perf.md assets/monitoring-observability/template-alert-rules.md assets/monitoring-observability/template-observability-slo.md assets/kubernetes/template-k8s-deploy.yaml assets/kubernetes/template-platform-api.md assets/kubernetes/template-kubernetes-ops.md assets/kubernetes/template-ha-dr.md assets/terraform-iac/template-env-promotion.md assets/terraform-iac/template-iac-terraform.md assets/terraform-iac/template-module.md
Data
data/sources.json — Curated external references Related Skills
Operations & Infrastructure:
../qa-resilience/SKILL.md — Resilience, chaos engineering, and failure handling patterns ../data-sql-optimization/SKILL.md — Database tuning, high availability, and migrations ../qa-observability/SKILL.md — Monitoring, tracing, profiling, and performance optimization ../qa-debugging/SKILL.md — Production debugging, log analysis, and root cause investigation
Security & Compliance:
../software-security-appsec/SKILL.md — Application-layer security patterns and OWASP best practices
Software Development:
../software-backend/SKILL.md — Service-level design and integration patterns ../software-architecture-design/SKILL.md — System design, scalability, and architectural patterns ../dev-api-design/SKILL.md — RESTful API design and versioning ../git-workflow/SKILL.md — Git branching strategies and CI/CD integration
Optional: AI/Automation (Related Skills):
../ai-mlops/SKILL.md — ML model deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management Cost Governance & Capacity Planning
assets/cost-governance/template-cost-governance.md — Production cost control for cloud infrastructure.
Key Sections Cost Governance Framework — Tagging strategy, budget alerts, anomaly detection Cloud Cost Optimization — Right-sizing, reserved capacity, storage tiering Kubernetes Cost Control — Resource requests/limits, quotas, autoscaler config Capacity Planning — Utilization baseline, growth projections, scaling triggers FinOps Practices — Monthly review agenda, optimization workflow Do / Avoid GOOD: Do Tag all resources at creation time Set budget alerts before hitting limits Review right-sizing recommendations monthly Use spot/preemptible for fault-tolerant workloads Set Kubernetes resource requests on all pods Enable cluster autoscaler with scale-down Document capacity planning assumptions Run postmortems after every incident BAD: Avoid Deploying without cost tags Running dev resources 24/7 Over-provisioning "just in case" Ignoring reserved capacity opportunities Disabling scale-down to "avoid disruption" Alert fatigue (too many low-priority alerts) Snowflake infrastructure (manual, undocumented) "Clickops" drift (changes outside IaC) Anti-Patterns Anti-Pattern Problem Fix No tagging Can't attribute costs Enforce tags in CI/CD Dev runs 24/7 70% waste Scheduled shutdown Over-provisioned Paying for unused capacity Monthly right-sizing No reservations Paying on-demand premium 60-70% coverage target Alert fatigue Real issues missed SLO-based alerting, tuned thresholds Snowflake infra Undocumented, unreproducible Everything in Terraform/IaC No postmortems Same incidents repeat Blameless postmortem for every SEV1/2 Optional: AI/Automation (AIOps)
Note: AI can assist with analysis and triage, but infrastructure/cost/incident decisions require human approval and an audit trail (especially anything destructive or irreversible).
AIOps Capabilities (2026)
Self-Healing Systems:
AI-powered anomaly detection to predict failures before they happen Automated remediation flows that trigger rollbacks or config changes Intelligent test selection and risk-based change scoring in CI/CD Causal graph analysis for instant root cause identification
Automated Operations:
Unused resource detection and notification Right-sizing recommendation generation Alert summarization and correlation (reduce noise by 90%+) Runbook step suggestions and automated execution AI-Assisted Analysis Cost trend prediction and anomaly detection Incident pattern identification across services Post-mortem theme extraction Capacity planning predictions Platform Engineering + AI
Platform teams increasingly embed AI capabilities directly into the platform:
Multi-agent orchestration for code generation, security validation, deployment Intelligent defaults and guardrails that scale across teams Bounded Claims AI recommendations need validation before action Automated deletions require approval workflow Cost predictions are estimates, not guarantees Runbook suggestions need SRE verification Self-healing actions should have human-defined policies and audit trails Operational Deep Dives
See references/operational-patterns.md for:
Platform engineering blueprints and GitOps reconciliation checklists DevSecOps CI/CD gates, SLO/SLI playbooks, and rollout verification steps Observability patterns (eBPF), incident noise reduction, and reliability drills External Resources
See data/sources.json for curated sources organized by tech stack:
Cloud Platforms: AWS, GCP, Azure documentation and best practices Container Orchestration: Kubernetes, Helm, Kustomize, Docker Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, ARM templates CI/CD & GitOps: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, ArgoCD, FluxCD Streaming: Apache Kafka, Confluent, Strimzi Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Cilium/Hubble, Tetragon SRE: Google SRE books, incident response patterns Security: OWASP DevSecOps, CIS Benchmarks, Trivy, Falco Tools: kubectl, k9s, stern, Cosign, Syft, Terragrunt
Use this skill as a hub for safe, modern, and production-grade DevOps patterns. All templates and patterns are operational—no theory or book summaries.
Trend Awareness Protocol
When users ask recommendation questions about DevOps, platform engineering, or cloud infrastructure, validate time-sensitive details (versions, deprecations, licensing, major releases) against primary sources.
Trigger Conditions "What's the best tool for [Kubernetes/IaC/CI-CD/monitoring]?" "What should I use for [container orchestration/GitOps/observability]?" "What's the latest in DevOps/platform engineering?" "Current best practices for [Terraform/ArgoCD/Prometheus]?" "Is [tool/approach] still relevant in 2026?" "[Kubernetes] vs [alternative]?" or "[ArgoCD] vs [FluxCD]?" "Best cloud provider for [use case]?" "What orchestration/monitoring tool should I use?" Minimum Verification (Preferred Order) Check the official docs + release notes linked in data/sources.json for the specific tools you recommend. If internet access is available, confirm recent releases, breaking changes, and deprecations from those release pages. If internet access is not available, state that versions may have changed and focus on stable selection criteria (operational fit, ecosystem, maturity, team skills, compliance). What to Report
After searching, provide:
Current landscape: What tools/approaches are popular NOW (not 6 months ago) Emerging trends: New tools, patterns, or practices gaining traction Deprecated/declining: Tools/approaches losing relevance or support Recommendation: Based on fresh data, not just static knowledge Example Topics (verify with fresh search) Kubernetes versions and ecosystem tools (1.33+, Cilium, Gateway API) Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi, CDK) GitOps platforms (ArgoCD, FluxCD, Codefresh) Observability stacks (OpenTelemetry, Grafana stack, Datadog) Platform engineering tools (Backstage, Port, Kratix) CI/CD platforms (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Dagger) Cloud-native security (Falco, Trivy, policy engines)