Define Infrastructure

Objective

Define the local development environment, cloud provider and compute model, networking setup, and Infrastructure as Code tooling.

Decisions to Make

1. Local Development Environment

• Containerization: Docker, Podman, or native?
• Dev/prod parity: How close is local to production?
• Makefile targets: make provision (install all deps), make run (start everything)
• Required tools: Which CLI tools, SDKs, runtimes must be installed?
• Environment variables: How are they managed locally? (.env file, direnv)

2. Cloud Provider & Compute Model

Choose compute model:
- Kubernetes (EKS/GKE/AKS) — Container orchestration. Best for: complex deployments, auto-scaling.
- Container service (ECS/Cloud Run) — Managed containers. Best for: simpler container deployments.
- Serverless (Lambda/Cloud Functions) — Event-driven functions. Best for: sporadic workloads.
- VMs (EC2/Compute Engine) — Traditional. Best for: legacy apps, specific OS needs.
- PaaS (Heroku/Railway/Render) — Managed platform. Best for: fast start, less ops overhead.
- Desktop only — No cloud. Best for: single-user desktop applications.

3. Networking

• VPC: Network isolation, subnets (public/private)
• DNS: Domain management, Route53/Cloudflare
• Load balancing: ALB/NLB, health checks, SSL termination
• CDN: Static asset distribution, edge caching

4. Infrastructure as Code

Choose one:
- AWS CDK — TypeScript/Python, AWS-native. Best for: AWS-only, programmatic infra.
- Terraform — HCL, multi-cloud. Best for: cloud-agnostic, declarative.
- Pulumi — General-purpose languages. Best for: developers who prefer Python/TS.
- CloudFormation — YAML/JSON, AWS-native. Best for: simple AWS setups.
- None — Manual/console setup. Best for: prototypes, desktop apps.

5. Scan Skills

Query Playbook Skills where capability_domain in:
- INFRA_LOCAL
- INFRA_CLOUD
- INFRA_K8S

Report coverage and gaps.

Deliverables

• ✅ Local dev environment defined with provisioning instructions
• ✅ Cloud provider & compute model chosen with rationale
• ✅ Networking architecture defined
• ✅ IaC tool selected
• ✅ Skill coverage assessed for this domain
• ✅ Decision recorded for inclusion in SAO.md (DTA-18)