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Forge Operations Repo Blueprints

This folder is a copyable operating model for a company that wants to run Forge as a real platform, not as one large repo with every concern mixed together.

Each subfolder emulates one repository. Copy a folder, rename the repo, replace the placeholders, then wire the repo into your normal branch protection and release process.

Start with Adoption Sequence if you are deciding which repos to create first.

Repo folder Owns Runtime surface
runner-base-image Base AMIs shared by all runner images. Packer, Ansible, AMI publishing
runner-custom-image Custom AMIs built from the base image. Packer, Ansible, tenant or org tools
containers ECR containers for action runners, pre-commit, and CI tools. Dockerfiles, ECR push workflow
renovate-config Dependency automation policy. Renovate config and scheduled workflow
cloud-custodian AMI and leftover resource cleanup. Cloud Custodian policies and schedule
forge-tenants-iac-aws Forge tenants and platform runtime config. Terragrunt tenant stacks
forge-infra-iac-aws EKS, helper modules, storage, and shared infra. Terragrunt infra/helper stacks
forge-examples-iac-aws Weekly apply/destroy tests for Forge examples. Generated example Terragrunt runs
reusable-actions Shared GitHub composite actions. Locking, Terragrunt comments, dynamic actions, workflow helpers

Baseline Repo Set

For a small platform team, start with these repos:

forge-runner-base-image
forge-runner-custom-image
forge-containers
forge-renovate-config
forge-cloud-custodian
forge-reusable-actions
forge-infra-iac-aws
forge-tenants-iac-aws
forge-examples-iac-aws

Keep Forge module source code in cisco-open/forge. These operating repos consume Forge releases and prove the release can be deployed.

Common Replacement Values

Replace these before running any workflow:

Placeholder Replace with
000000000000 AWS account ID
eu-west-1 Default AWS region
forge-ops-prod AWS profile used by CI
owner Deployment role name
example.com/forge ECR or artifact registry
cisco-open/forge Your Forge fork if you do not use upstream directly
FORGE_REF Forge release, branch, or commit SHA
acme Example tenant name

Suggested Ownership

  • Image team owns runner-base-image and runner-custom-image.
  • Platform team owns forge-infra-iac-aws and forge-tenants-iac-aws.
  • Developer experience owns containers and renovate-config.
  • Operations owns cloud-custodian, reusable-actions, and weekly examples.

This split keeps day-to-day changes narrow. A Renovate config change should not touch EKS. An AMI bake should not touch tenant Terragrunt. A Splunk integration change should not be required for a company that does not use Splunk.