# Capstone Projects

Use these projects to turn the repository from theory into senior-level interview evidence.

## Capstone 1 - Single-Service Delivery Platform

### Goal

Prove that you can build a basic but professional delivery path for one application.

### Scope

* source code in Git
* Dockerfile
* CI pipeline with test and image build
* registry publish
* Kubernetes deployment
* one dashboard and one alert

### Deliverables

* architecture diagram
* pipeline file
* Kubernetes manifests or Helm chart
* short deployment runbook
* short rollback procedure

### What It Proves

* Git workflow understanding
* CI/CD fundamentals
* containerization
* Kubernetes basics
* observability basics

## Capstone 2 - Environment Provisioning With IaC

### Goal

Prove that you can provision and manage the delivery platform safely.

### Scope

* Terraform modules for network, compute, IAM, and storage
* remote backend and state locking
* separate dev and prod environments
* optional Ansible bootstrap or configuration step

### Deliverables

* module structure
* backend configuration
* environment layout
* one example of drift prevention or protection such as `prevent_destroy`
* short explanation of why the structure minimizes blast radius

### What It Proves

* infrastructure as code maturity
* state and environment strategy
* reproducibility
* operational safety

## Capstone 3 - Senior Operations Pack

### Goal

Prove that you can operate the platform like a senior engineer.

### Scope

* define SLIs and SLOs
* create an alerting policy
* simulate one failure drill
* capture a runbook
* capture an RCA
* include at least one cost and one security control

### Suggested Failure Drills

* `CrashLoopBackOff`
* bad deployment with rollback
* Terraform drift or unsafe plan
* high latency after scaling
* Prometheus no-data or noisy-alert problem

### Deliverables

* SLO document
* alert definitions
* failure drill notes
* runbook
* RCA
* improvement backlog

### What It Proves

* production operations mindset
* incident handling
* reliability engineering
* communication quality

## Stretch Project - Internal Developer Platform Lite

If you want a project that signals strong senior potential, build a small paved road:

* one reusable application template
* one standard pipeline
* one Terraform module set
* one deployment template
* one dashboard pack
* one onboarding guide

This project demonstrates platform thinking, standardization, and team enablement rather than isolated tooling knowledge.