# Stella Ops Suite Documentation

**Stella Ops Suite** is a centralized, auditable release control plane for non-Kubernetes container estates. It orchestrates environment promotions, gates releases using reachability-aware security and policy, and produces verifiable evidence for every decision.

The platform combines:
- **Release orchestration** — UI-driven promotion (Dev → Stage → Prod), approvals, policy gates, rollbacks
- **Security decisioning as a gate** — Scan on build, evaluate on release, re-evaluate on CVE updates
- **OCI-digest-first releases** — Immutable digest-based release identity with "what is deployed where" tracking
- **Toolchain-agnostic integrations** — Plug into any SCM, CI, registry, and secrets system
- **Auditability + standards** — Evidence packets, SBOM/VEX/attestation support, deterministic replay

## Two Levels of Documentation

- **High-level (canonical):** the curated guides in `docs/*.md`.
- **Detailed (reference):** deep dives under `docs/**` (module dossiers, architecture notes, API contracts/samples, runbooks, schemas). The entry point is `docs/technical/README.md`.

This documentation set is internal and does not keep compatibility stubs for old paths. Content is consolidated to reduce duplication and outdated pages.

## Start Here

### Product Understanding

| Goal | Open this |
| --- | --- |
| Understand the product in 2 minutes | [overview.md](overview.md) |
| Browse capabilities | [key-features.md](key-features.md) |
| Feature matrix | [FEATURE_MATRIX.md](FEATURE_MATRIX.md) |
| Product vision | [product/VISION.md](product/VISION.md) |
| Roadmap (priorities + definition of "done") | [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md) |

### Getting Started

| Goal | Open this |
| --- | --- |
| Run a first scan (CLI) | [quickstart.md](quickstart.md) |
| Ingest advisories (Concelier + CLI) | [CONCELIER_CLI_QUICKSTART.md](CONCELIER_CLI_QUICKSTART.md) |
| Console (Web UI) operator guide | [UI_GUIDE.md](UI_GUIDE.md) |
| Offline / air-gap operations | [OFFLINE_KIT.md](OFFLINE_KIT.md) |

### Architecture

| Goal | Open this |
| --- | --- |
| Architecture: high-level overview | [ARCHITECTURE_OVERVIEW.md](ARCHITECTURE_OVERVIEW.md) |
| Architecture: full reference map | [ARCHITECTURE_REFERENCE.md](ARCHITECTURE_REFERENCE.md) |
| Architecture: user flows (UML) | [technical/architecture/user-flows.md](technical/architecture/user-flows.md) |
| Architecture: module matrix | [technical/architecture/module-matrix.md](technical/architecture/module-matrix.md) |
| Architecture: data flows | [technical/architecture/data-flows.md](technical/architecture/data-flows.md) |
| Architecture: schema mapping | [technical/architecture/schema-mapping.md](technical/architecture/schema-mapping.md) |
| Release Orchestrator architecture | [modules/release-orchestrator/architecture.md](modules/release-orchestrator/architecture.md) |

### Development & Operations

| Goal | Open this |
| --- | --- |
| Develop plugins/connectors | [PLUGIN_SDK_GUIDE.md](PLUGIN_SDK_GUIDE.md) |
| Security deployment hardening | [SECURITY_HARDENING_GUIDE.md](SECURITY_HARDENING_GUIDE.md) |
| VEX consensus and issuer trust | [VEX_CONSENSUS_GUIDE.md](VEX_CONSENSUS_GUIDE.md) |
| Vulnerability Explorer guide | [VULNERABILITY_EXPLORER_GUIDE.md](VULNERABILITY_EXPLORER_GUIDE.md) |

## Detailed Indexes

- **Technical index (everything):** [docs/technical/README.md](/docs/technical/)
- **End-to-end workflow flows:** [docs/flows/](/docs/flows/)
- **Module dossiers:** [docs/modules/](/docs/modules/)
- **API contracts and samples:** [docs/api/](/docs/api/)
- **Architecture notes / ADRs:** [docs/technical/architecture/](/docs/technical/architecture/), [docs/technical/adr/](/docs/technical/adr/)
- **Operations and deployment:** [docs/operations/](/docs/operations/)
- **Air-gap workflows:** [docs/modules/airgap/guides/](/docs/modules/airgap/guides/)
- **Security deep dives:** [docs/security/](/docs/security/)
- **Benchmarks and fixtures:** [docs/benchmarks/](/docs/benchmarks/), [docs/assets/](/docs/assets/)
- **Product advisories:** [docs/product/advisories/](/docs/product/advisories/)

## Platform Themes

Stella Ops Suite organizes capabilities into themes:

### Existing Themes (Operational)

| Theme | Purpose | Key Modules |
|-------|---------|-------------|
| **INGEST** | Advisory ingestion | Concelier, Advisory-AI |
| **VEXOPS** | VEX document handling | Excititor, VEX Lens, VEX Hub |
| **REASON** | Policy and decisioning | Policy Engine, OPA Runtime |
| **SCANENG** | Scanning and SBOM | Scanner, SBOM Service, Reachability |
| **EVIDENCE** | Evidence and attestation | Evidence Locker, Attestor, Export Center |
| **RUNTIME** | Runtime signals | Signals, Graph, Zastava |
| **JOBCTRL** | Job orchestration | Scheduler, Orchestrator, TaskRunner |
| **OBSERVE** | Observability | Notifier, Telemetry |
| **REPLAY** | Deterministic replay | Replay Engine |
| **DEVEXP** | Developer experience | CLI, Web UI, SDK |

### Planned Themes (Release Orchestration)

| Theme | Purpose | Key Modules |
|-------|---------|-------------|
| **INTHUB** | Integration hub | Integration Manager, Connection Profiles, Connector Runtime |
| **ENVMGR** | Environment management | Environment Manager, Target Registry, Agent Manager |
| **RELMAN** | Release management | Component Registry, Version Manager, Release Manager |
| **WORKFL** | Workflow engine | Workflow Designer, Workflow Engine, Step Executor |
| **PROMOT** | Promotion and approval | Promotion Manager, Approval Gateway, Decision Engine |
| **DEPLOY** | Deployment execution | Deploy Orchestrator, Target Executor, Artifact Generator |
| **AGENTS** | Deployment agents | Agent Core, Docker/Compose/ECS/Nomad agents |
| **PROGDL** | Progressive delivery | A/B Manager, Traffic Router, Canary Controller |
| **RELEVI** | Release evidence | Evidence Collector, Sticker Writer, Audit Exporter |
| **PLUGIN** | Plugin infrastructure | Plugin Registry, Plugin Loader, Plugin SDK |

## Design Principles

- **Offline-first**: All core operations work in air-gapped environments
- **Deterministic replay**: Same inputs yield same outputs (stable ordering, canonical hashing)
- **Evidence-linked decisions**: Every decision links to concrete evidence artifacts
- **Digest-first release identity**: Releases are immutable OCI digests, not mutable tags
- **Pluggable everything**: Integrations are plugins; core orchestration is stable
- **No feature gating**: All plans include all features; limits are environments + new digests/day