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Overview

The platform is the shared AWS foundation that applications deploy onto, so that adding a new application does not mean rebuilding a cluster, networking, TLS, secrets, and delivery.

What the platform provides

Per-environment clusters with networking, TLS, secrets, a shared artifact registry, GitOps delivery, and a contract that applications consume. The components and topology are in Architecture; the environment model is in Environments.

How an application fits

An application provides a container image and a Helm chart, plus an ApplicationSet that describes its per-environment deployments. Its pipeline builds, scans, and pushes the image, then commits the desired digest; Argo CD reconciles the cluster. See Add an application.

Design principles

  • One owner per object. The platform owns platform objects, the application owns its own, Argo CD owns the application release, and nothing overlaps (ADR-001, ADR-009, ADR-012).
  • Digest, not tags. Deployments pin an immutable image digest.
  • Pull configuration, don't hard-code it. Applications read the published contract and never read platform internals.
  • Ephemeral by default. Environments are created for a window and destroyed afterwards.

Current state and direction

The first increment runs one Argo CD per cluster and names clusters after the application. The decisions record the move to a single Argo CD, platform-scoped naming, and a platform-owned registry (ADR-013).