--- title: "Dev-Only Deployment Policy" slug: dev-only-deployment-policy section: GCP Infrastructure status: stable description: "Defines which repositories and services are scoped exclusively to the development cluster and why, based on a June 2026 infrastructure audit." last-updated: 2026-10-07 --- # Dev-Only Deployment Policy Defines which repositories and services are scoped exclusively to the development cluster and why, based on a June 2026 infrastructure audit. > **Audit Outcome** > > A full audit conducted on 23 June 2026 found that all dev-only repos were correctly scoped as of that date, with no QA or production deployments and no removal actions required. This finding predates the July 2026 Cloud Run MCP hosting migration (see the Cloud Run MCP Services section below for current project references) and should be re-verified rather than treated as an unchanging baseline. ## Overview Not every service in the Alliance Abroad engineering ecosystem needs to run in QA and production clusters. A class of services — primarily internal tooling, MCP servers, and developer-facing dashboards — is consumed only by platform engineers or AI agents operating within the development environment. Deploying these to QA and production would add unnecessary cost, attack surface, and operational overhead without any end-user benefit. This page documents the official list of dev-only services, their deployment targets, and the rationale for restricting them to the development cluster. It also records the multi-environment repos for contrast, so the boundary is unambiguous. ## GKE Cluster Inventory The Alliance Abroad GKE infrastructure spans three named clusters (development, QA, production); the development and production clusters listed below sit in GCP project skilled-script-469819-f2 (development) and a separate production project referenced via the GCP_PROJECT_ID_PROD secret. | Cluster | Environment | GCP Project | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | globus-cluster-development | Development | skilled-script-469819-f2 | All dev-only services live here | | globus-cluster-prod | Production | GCP_PROJECT_ID_PROD (secret) | Core portals and ERP only | > **QA Cluster** > > A QA cluster is referenced in k8s manifests for the core application repos (e.g., BackOfficePrototype/k8s/qa). Since the move to the sandbox branching model (PPPToo and HostPortalPrototype 2026-10-04, BackOfficePrototype 2026-10-06) QA is a pool of slots deployed from release/* branches (BackOfficePrototype: deploy-release-qa.yml onto globus-qa-N); no repo deploys QA from a push to the qa branch any more. ## Dev-Only Repos & Services The following repositories have k8s manifests or Cloud Build configurations that target only the development cluster. They have no QA or production deployment pipeline and should not be promoted to those environments. | Repository | Type | Namespace | Description | CI/CD Target | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | repo | type | namespace | description | cicd | _(row above is a template, repeated for each data row)_ ## Multi-Environment Repos For contrast, the following repositories are intentionally deployed across multiple environments. These are the core user-facing application portals and the ERP. | Repository | Environments | Clusters | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | repo | envs | clusters | notes | _(row above is a template, repeated for each data row)_ ## Cloud Run MCP Services Several MCP server repos deploy to Google Cloud Run rather than GKE. These services use a single Cloud Build pipeline targeting one GCP project — the dedicated alliance-mcp-services project, isolated from the dev/QA/prod Globus environments. There is no per-environment Cloud Run service variant — they are effectively dev-only in terms of access pattern, since they are consumed exclusively by Manus agents and platform engineers. | Repository | Cloud Run Service | GCP Project | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | repo | service | project | notes | _(row above is a template, repeated for each data row)_ ## Rationale The services listed above are restricted to the development environment for the following reasons: - Access pattern: These services are consumed exclusively by platform engineers, AI agents (Manus), or internal dashboards. No end-user or customer traffic reaches them. - Cost efficiency: Running MCP servers, build dashboards, and developer tooling in QA and production clusters would add unnecessary GKE node and Cloud Run costs with no corresponding business value. - Attack surface reduction: Limiting these services to the development cluster reduces the blast radius of any potential compromise. - Operational simplicity: Fewer environments to maintain, patch, and monitor for services that are not customer-critical. ## Enforcement & Verification The following checks should be applied when reviewing PRs or infrastructure changes for dev-only repos: CI/CD workflows must reference only globus-cluster-development or the dev GCP project (skilled-script-469819-f2). / No k8s/qa or k8s/prod directories should be added to dev-only repos without explicit platform engineer sign-off. / Cloud Build triggers for MCP repos must target the dedicated alliance-mcp-services GCP project, never a QA or production Globus GCP project. / Any new developer tooling or MCP server repo should default to dev-only unless a specific multi-environment requirement is documented. > **globus-ocr-infra Note** > > globus-ocr-infra contains a k8s/qa subdirectory with manifests, but no CI/CD workflow deploys to it. These manifests are preparatory and unused. If a QA deployment is ever needed, a dedicated workflow must be created and this policy page updated. ## Audit History | Date | Conducted By | Outcome | | --- | --- | --- | | 2026-06-23 | Sam O'Regan (Platform Engineer) via Manus | Full org-wide audit of all 36 repos in Alliance-Strategies. Confirmed all dev-only services were correctly scoped as of this date. No QA or prod deployments found. No removal actions required at the time. This policy page created to document the baseline (superseded in part by the July 2026 Cloud Run MCP hosting migration — see Cloud Run MCP Services above). | | 2026-10-06 | Sam O'Regan (Platform Engineer) | Multi-environment repo rows and the QA Cluster note updated for the sandbox branching model: BackOfficePrototype (converted 2026-10-06), PPPToo and HostPortalPrototype (2026-10-04) deploy feature/* to dev pool slots, release/* to QA pool slots and main to production by blue-green; their legacy development/qa deploy workflows are disabled. |