Creating environments from nothing.
WHY THIS MATTERS
It is your disaster recovery plan, your onboarding process and your consistency guarantee, all at once.
WHAT TO AUTOMATE
Installing required software Applying configuration Setting up the database Deploying the application Seeding reference data
WHAT TO MEASURE
How long it takes from nothing to working.
WHAT TO REDUCE
That time.
WHAT TO TEST
The whole process, periodically, from a clean start.
WHY PERIODICALLY
It decays. A step becomes outdated and nobody notices until it is needed.
WHAT THAT TEST REVEALS
Undocumented manual steps Dependencies on things that no longer exist Assumptions about the starting state
WHAT TO KEEP IN VERSION CONTROL
The whole setup process.
WHAT TO PARAMETERISE
Environment-specific values.
WHAT TO EXCLUDE
Secrets, supplied separately.
WHAT THIS ENABLES
Rebuilding after a disaster A new developer working within the hour
