arch-baseline

name: arch-baseline version: "1.0" description: > Establish project baseline governance, provider decision, post-decision research normalization, and Well-Architected adherence plan; emit a hard gate for downstream skills. Triggers: "baseline", "arch-baseline", "provider decision", "cloud provider", "Well-Architected plan", "baseline gate", "validate_baseline.py", "scaffold_baseline.py". Fails closed on missing mandatory artifacts or empty required controls.

arch-baseline — Baseline Governance + Provider Decision + Research-Normalized Well-Architected Plan

Mission

Reduce architectural variance by anchoring the project to project-specific ground truth, then producing a validated baseline system-of-record that downstream skills must reference.

Scope

This skill produces baseline governance, scope boundaries, provider decision (RFC→ADR), post-decision research with audit trail, Well-Architected adherence plan, C4 Context/Container snapshot, and baseline stubs for domain model and contract catalog. It also initializes canonical registries.

Non-negotiable invariants

1. Baseline-first: Downstream skills must fail if baseline gate fails.
2. Fail-closed validation: Missing mandatory artifacts or empty required controls cause failure.
3. Auditable research: Every external lookup is recorded in the tool-call audit trail and referenced in the evidence log.
4. Normalization: Research findings must land in registries/policies—not just narrative docs.
5. Decision lifecycle: Provider choice and major baseline deviations are recorded as RFC→ADR (or Exception/ACR if you implement it later).

Canonical output locations (project repo)

• Baseline docs: docs/baseline/
• Architecture docs: docs/architecture/ (owned by arch-docs)
• Implementation docs: docs/implementation/ (owned by impl-strategy)
• Canonical registries: registries/
• Audit artifacts: docs/audit/
  • Evidence: docs/audit/evidence/
  • Tool-call audit: docs/audit/tool_calls/

Mandatory baseline artifacts (project outputs)

Baseline governance and standards:

• docs/baseline/DOCS_GOVERNANCE.md
• docs/baseline/ADR_POLICY.md
• Golden templates directory (project-level reference): docs/baseline/golden_templates/

System definition:

• docs/baseline/SYSTEM_CHARTER.md
• docs/baseline/SCOPE_BOUNDARIES.md

Provider evaluation and decision:

• docs/baseline/PROVIDER_COMPARISON_RFC.md
• docs/baseline/CLOUD_PROVIDER_DECISION_ADR.md

Post-decision research + adherence:

• docs/baseline/WELL_ARCHITECTED_ADHERENCE_PLAN.md
• docs/audit/EVIDENCE_LOG.md
• docs/audit/tool_calls/tool_call_audit.jsonl (required)

Baseline architecture snapshot + stubs:

• docs/baseline/C4_Context.md
• docs/baseline/C4_Container.md
• docs/baseline/DOMAIN_MODEL.md (initialized stub)
• docs/baseline/CONTRACT_CATALOG.md (initialized stub)

Security and operational baselines:

• docs/baseline/SECURITY_BASELINE.md
• docs/baseline/OPS_READINESS_STANDARD.md

Handoff contract to downstream skill:

• docs/baseline/BASELINE_INDEX.md
• docs/baseline/BASELINE_HANDOFF.md
• docs/baseline/baseline_manifest.json

Registries (canonical truth):

• registries/constraints_registry.yml (or .json)
• registries/security_controls_catalog.yml (or .json)
• registries/slo_catalog.yml (or .json)
• Optional early catalogs (initialize empty if applicable):
  • registries/service_catalog.yml
  • registries/event_catalog.yml
  • registries/env_catalog.yml

Provider packs

After provider selection, load a provider pack and normalize guidance into registries and adherence plan. Recommended location:

• custom_skills/arch-baseline/resources/provider_packs/aws/
• custom_skills/arch-baseline/resources/provider_packs/azure/
• custom_skills/arch-baseline/resources/provider_packs/gcp/

Each pack should contain:

• pillar sets + review procedure defaults
• baseline control mappings (identity, logging, encryption, monitoring)
• naming/structural constraints (accounts/subscriptions/projects, regions, network)
• validation extensions for the baseline gate

Research sources (post provider decision)

Use MCP documentation tools when available, otherwise web search. Record all lookups:

• Cloud provider docs MCP (AWS/Azure/GCP depending on chosen provider)
• Kubernetes docs MCP (if Kubernetes is in scope)
• Terraform docs MCP (if Terraform is in scope)
• AWS CDK docs MCP (if CDK is in scope)
• Additional sources only if required; always logged.

Execution contract (high-level)

Follow phases and gates defined in phased_artifact_workflow+gates.md. Stop immediately if any gate fails. Do not proceed to downstream skills until the baseline gate passes.

Quality bar

• No invented claims about provider best practices without recorded evidence.
• No missing mandatory artifacts.
• Registries contain normalized constraints/controls sufficient to govern downstream docs.
• Adherence plan maps every pillar to required downstream deliverables and evidence types.