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Demo and Staging Setup designed

Demo and staging should not be special laptop states. They should be repeatable environment profiles that reuse the same release, UAT, and readback model as kind and dev.

Environment Roles

EnvironmentPurposeMust prove
kindfast integration and feature validationcontracts, web flows, API behavior, smoke tests
devshared continuous delivery targetdeploy, migration, UAT, provider wiring
democurated stakeholder pathsupported apps, clean data, user guide, product story
stagingproduction-like two-node profilerelease mechanics, HA assumptions, rollback, ops evidence
prodcontrolled production profileenvironment hardening, rings, observability, support

Desired Setup Flow

Demo Environment

Demo is for product and stakeholder walkthroughs. It should be clean, stable, and explainable.

AreaDemo requirement
Identitynamed demo users for user, tenant admin, platform admin, and ops personas
Appssupported app matrix seeded and launchable
Datasmall, readable project/resource names
Billingdeterministic balances and visible usage changes
MFAuser setup, manage, recovery, and admin recovery paths demonstrable
Docsuser guide links and screenshots match the deployed build
Resetreset script returns demo to known-good state

Staging Environment

Staging is the production-model rehearsal. It should be stricter than demo and less curated.

Minimum staging proof:

  • two-node cluster profile is rendered from config;
  • service images and source SHA match CI output;
  • DNS/TLS/edge routing is read back;
  • database, Redis, NATS, Temporal, Keycloak, API, web, workers, and terminal gateway have version/readback status;
  • UAT covers user, tenant admin, app developer, platform admin, and ops flows;
  • rollback and restore procedures are tested or explicitly blocked.

Supported-App Matrix

The demo/staging app matrix should include at least:

App/runtimeWhy it mattersProof
Jupyter or notebook runtimecommon GPU user workflowlaunch, connect, stop, usage evidence
Slurm reference controllernon-trivial scheduler/runtime integrationprovision, reconcile, state transitions
RKE2 self-managed controllercluster-style app proofdeploy, connect, cleanup
Simple OCI appbaseline app SDK pathmanifest, launch, status, logs

Version And Evidence Readback

Every setup should produce:

  • source SHA;
  • image digests or binary versions;
  • environment profile name;
  • Cloudflare/DNS hostnames;
  • migration/readiness status;
  • UAT package link;
  • portal publication build id;
  • residual blocked items.

Use Service Version Readback as the target UI/API model.

Exit Criteria

A demo or staging environment is ready when a new operator can:

  1. render the profile from config;
  2. deploy from a known SHA;
  3. run UAT without private tribal knowledge;
  4. reset or roll back within the documented scope;
  5. show product, security, and ops evidence from the portal/readback surfaces.