Operator decisions, 2026-09-01:
1. Prod uses the SAME SOPS age key as dev.
2. Prod tracks the SAME BRANCH as dev (`main`). Dev is a temporary instance and will be
decommissioned once prod is deemed stable.
SOPS: eight `decryption: {provider: sops, secretRef: sops-age}` patches mirroring dev
exactly — platform, apps-wave-0/1/2, oauth2-proxy, headlamp, crafty, velero. The sops-age
Secret is still created OUT OF BAND on prod (bootstrap/sops/install-age-key.sh); the
overlay references it by name only, never inlines key material.
RECORDED CONSEQUENCE of the shared branch: once prod is live, EVERY MERGE TO main
RECONCILES BOTH CLUSTERS. There is no promotion step and no soak window — dev and prod
move together. That is a deliberate consequence of dev being temporary, not an oversight,
but it removes the "prove it on dev first" safety net that the last few days have leaned
on heavily. Worth revisiting if dev outlives its expected life.
*** BOOTSTRAP BLOCKER recorded, NOT papered over *** — the source URL cannot work on a
cold prod cluster, for two independent reasons found while wiring this:
1. SELF-HOSTING CIRCULARITY. Gitea runs ON THE DEV CLUSTER — the one slated for
decommission. Prod syncing from it means prod's source of truth lives inside the
cluster being retired. Gitea must move to prod (or off-cluster) BEFORE dev is torn
down. This makes Gitea migration the FIRST task of the decommission plan, not the last.
2. SPLIT-HORIZON DNS SENDS IT TO THE WRONG PLACE. platform/coredns/coredns-custom.yaml
answers the ENTIRE home.keithjackson.dev zone with ${GATEWAY_VIP} via a template
plugin. On prod that is 192.168.2.20 — PROD's own gateway, where no Gitea listens. Prod
Flux would resolve gitea.home.keithjackson.dev to itself and never reach a repository.
This is the same split-horizon mechanism that makes dev work, inverted against us.
Bring-up therefore needs a TEMPORARY source (the bootstrap host-Gitea, or an off-cluster
mirror) with a cutover to the in-cluster URL once Gitea actually runs on prod — precisely
the sequence docs/05 describes for dev's own Phase-6 cutover. The branch is settled and
correct; only the host is blocked. Documented at the patch site and in
PROD-PROVISIONING.md §7.
Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.
Serves: R-SEC-01, R-GITOPS-01, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
clusters/
Flux entrypoints and the environment-overlay model (R-ENV-02, R-GITOPS-01/02/03).
Governing spec: docs/05-gitops-and-delivery.md,
docs/02-environments-and-provisioning.md,
ADR-0004 (Flux).
Phase 0 scaffolding only. These are structurally-correct stubs. No cluster exists — nothing here reconciles until WS-INFRA delivers a cluster and bootstraps Flux (roadmap Phase 1).
Layout — base + overlay (never fork the base)
clusters/
base/ shared Flux objects (one authoring, both environments)
flux-system.yaml GitRepository — the reconciliation source (bootstrap → Gitea)
platform.yaml Flux Kustomization → ./platform (reconciles first)
apps-wave-0.yaml Flux Kustomization → ./apps/wave-0 (dependsOn platform-config)
apps-wave-1.yaml Flux Kustomization → ./apps/wave-1 (dependsOn apps-wave-0)
apps-wave-2.yaml Flux Kustomization → ./apps/wave-N (dependsOn apps-wave-N-1)
cluster-vars.yaml ConfigMap of overlay knobs (BASE defaults)
kustomization.yaml
dev/ ACTIVE build target — patches cluster-vars with dev values only
kustomization.yaml
prod/ DESIGN-ONLY until roadmap Phase 7 — patches cluster-vars with prod values only
kustomization.yaml
How the overlay model satisfies R-ENV-02
The base authors the reconciliation graph once. platform.yaml and the app-wave Kustomizations
(apps-wave-0/1/2.yaml — the single apps.yaml was retired; apps-vms.yaml deliberately omits it,
see below) declare postBuild.substituteFrom the cluster-vars ConfigMap. Platform and
app manifests use ${TOKEN} placeholders for every value that legitimately differs between
environments (issuer, replica counts, storage sizes, retention, node placement).
clusters/dev and clusters/prod differ ONLY by the values they patch into cluster-vars —
they add no resources of their own and never copy/fork a base manifest. Promotion to prod
(docs/02) is a change to the
prod overlay's variables, nothing else.
LAN addressing is a knob, not a literal (fixed 2026-08-31)
Until 2026-08-31 the base manifests hardcoded the dev LAN: the k3s API host Cilium dials, the
Cilium LB IP pool range, the pinned crafty/unifi L4 VIPs and the off-cluster S3 backup endpoint. That
broke R-ENV-02 outright — clusters/prod would have rendered dev addresses (192.168.1.x) onto the
prod LAN (192.168.2.x). They are now the cluster-vars "LAN addressing" block
(K3S_API_HOST, CILIUM_LB_POOL_START/_STOP, UNIFI_L4_VIP, CRAFTY_L4_VIP,
S3_BACKUP_ENDPOINT, alongside the pre-existing GATEWAY_VIP), set explicitly by BOTH overlays.
Two rules when touching that block:
- Substitution coverage. A
${TOKEN}only resolves in a path whose Flux Kustomization declarespostBuild.substituteFrom: cluster-vars; anywhere else the literal string${TOKEN}ships to the cluster.apps-vmswas the one path without it and now has it — which means every shell${...}in a VM manifest's cloud-init must be escaped$${...}(seeclusters/base/apps-vms.yamlfor the full envsubst escape contract). GATEWAY_VIPmust be insideCILIUM_LB_POOL_START..STOP, and in practice equal to START: thesharedGateway pins no address, so Cilium LB-IPAM gives it the pool's first free IP while split-horizon CoreDNS answers with${GATEWAY_VIP}. A VIP outside the pool blackholes in-cluster hairpin traffic while the Gateway still looks healthy.
Values the operator has not decided are TBD-PROD-* placeholders, not guesses: prod inherits the
DEV base defaults if an overlay op is simply omitted, so an invalid value that fails loudly is
strictly safer than a plausible one that quietly comes up on the wrong network.
How Flux is pointed at an environment
flux bootstrap (run by WS-INFRA in Phase 1) targets one environment's path per cluster:
# dev cluster
flux bootstrap ... --path=clusters/dev
# prod cluster (Phase 7 only — design-only until then)
flux bootstrap ... --path=clusters/prod
Bootstrap materializes the flux-system Kustomization that renders the chosen overlay, which pulls
in base/ and applies the env-scoped cluster-vars.
Reconciliation order
GitRepository (flux-system)
│
▼
Kustomization: platform (./platform, substituteFrom cluster-vars)
│ healthy
▼
Kustomization: apps-wave-0 (./apps/wave-0, dependsOn platform-config, substituteFrom cluster-vars)
│ healthy
▼
Kustomization: apps-wave-1 (./apps/wave-1, dependsOn apps-wave-0)
│ healthy
▼
Kustomization: apps-wave-N (./apps/wave-N, dependsOn apps-wave-N-1)
Wave 0 dependsOn platform-config (transitively platform) so CNI/storage/TLS/DNS/gateway
exist before any workload reconciles. The app tier is split into dependency-ordered WAVES
(catalog/render.py --emit-waves): each apps-wave-<N> health-gates (wait:true) ONLY its own
wave, so a crashloop in a later wave can no longer stall an earlier wave or block new revisions.
See DESIGN-waves.md for the wave table + cutover runbook.
TODOs (later phases — do not action in Phase 0)
- Source cutover (WS-GITOPS, Phase 6):
base/flux-system.yamlcurrently points at the bootstrap source. After Gitea is onboarded, repointspec.urltogitea.home.keithjackson.devand keep an off-cluster mirror (specdocs/05"Source-of-truth",CONTRIBUTING.md). - SOPS decryption (WS-SEC, Phase 1): add
spec.decryption.provider: sops(age secret name only, never plaintext) to the platform/apps Kustomizations once the age key is bootstrapped (ADR-0007). - Split ordered Flux Kustomizations if intra-platform ordering needs to be explicit (e.g. a
separate
cilium/longhornKustomization othersdependsOn).