Use Case

DevOps & Infrastructure

CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and deployment automation with rollback plans.

Overview

CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and deployment automation demand structured phases to prevent configuration drift and production surprises. Datarim's pipeline ensures that every infrastructure change is planned, tested locally before CI integration, scanned for security issues, and documented with a rollback plan. The compliance stage is particularly critical here — it verifies that no secrets are hardcoded, monitoring is configured, and rollback procedures are documented before anything reaches production.

Example: CI/CD Pipeline with Docker and Automated Deployment

A team needs to Dockerize their application, set up a GitLab CI pipeline, and configure automated deployment to staging and production with approval gates and rollback capability.

Pipeline Walkthrough

StageWhat happens
/dr-initScope: Dockerize the app + GitLab CI pipeline + staging/prod deployment. Complexity: L3
/dr-prdRequirements: multi-stage Docker build, CI stages (lint, test, build, deploy), environment separation, secret management, rollback capability
/dr-planPhases: 1) Dockerfile + compose, 2) CI pipeline, 3) staging deploy, 4) prod deploy with approval gate
/dr-doBuild each phase. Test locally before CI integration
/dr-complianceCI/CD impact analysis, security scan (no hardcoded secrets), rollback plan documented, monitoring configured
/dr-archive (Step 0.5)Lesson: testing the pipeline in a throwaway environment first prevented 2 production issues

Key Benefits

  • Security scanning built in — compliance checks ensure no secrets are hardcoded in Dockerfiles, CI configs, or deployment scripts
  • Phased rollout — the plan stage separates local testing, CI integration, staging, and production into distinct phases with gates
  • Rollback documentation — compliance requires a documented rollback procedure before production deployment is approved
  • Throwaway-first testing — reflections consistently show that testing in disposable environments prevents production incidents

Relevant Agents

Which agents are most active in this use case:

  • DevOps — CI/CD pipeline configuration and deployment automation
  • Security — secret management, container scanning, least-privilege enforcement
  • Compliance — infrastructure checklist verification and rollback plan review
  • Architect — environment architecture and deployment topology decisions

Complexity Routing

How complexity levels apply to DevOps and infrastructure:

  • L1 — Update an environment variable or fix a CI config syntax error
  • L2 — Add a new CI stage (e.g., linting) or configure a Docker multi-stage build
  • L3 — Set up a complete CI/CD pipeline with Docker, staging/prod environments, and approval gates
  • L4 — Multi-region infrastructure with blue-green deployments, auto-scaling, and disaster recovery