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Proposal: Use Stack Filesystem Layout That Follows AWS Organization Conventions

Date: 27 May 2022

Needs Update!

The content in this ADR may be out-of-date and needing an update. For questions, please reach out to Cloud Posse

  • The proposal has already been adopted, and this ADR needs to be updated to reflect the final decision.

Status​

DRAFT

Decision​

Use Option 4: Use an organization directory.

Problem​

We have stacks defined all over the place. It’s not clear what is a top-level stack and what is imported. It’s not clear where to define something and where a service is deployed. There are too many ways to do things and we haven’t standardized how we organize configurations across customers.

Context​

Considered Options​

Option 1: Current​

  • stacks/catalog

  • stacks/<tenant>

  • stacks/<env>

✗ tree -L 2 stacks
stacks
├── catalog
│   ├── account-map.yaml
│   ├── ...
│   └── waf.yaml
├── core
│   ├── gbl
│   ├── globals.yaml
│   ├── ue1
│   └── ue2
├── gbl
│   ├── artifacts.yaml
│   ...
│   └── staging.yaml
├── globals.yaml
├── plat
│   ├── gbl
│   ├── globals.yaml
│   └── ue2
├── ue1
│   └── globals.yaml
└── ue2
    ├── audit.yaml
    ...
    └── staging.yaml

Option 2: Put region within catalog​

  • stacks/catalog/<env>

  • stacks/<tenant>

✗ tree -L 3 stacks --dirsfirst
stacks
├── catalog
│   ├── argocd
│   │   └── repo
...
│   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── artifacts.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   ├── s3-bucket
│   ├── ue1
│   │   └── globals.yaml
│   ├── ue2
│   │   ├── audit.yaml
│   │   ├── auto.yaml
│   │   ├── corp.yaml
│   │   ├── dev.yaml
│   │   ├── globals.yaml
│   │   ├── marketplace.yaml
│   │   ├── network.yaml
│   │   ├── prod.yaml
│   │   ├── root.yaml
│   │   ├── sandbox.yaml
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   ├── account-map.yaml
...
│   └── waf.yaml
├── core
│   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── artifacts.yaml
...
│   │   └── security.yaml
│   ├── ue1
│   │   ├── globals.yaml
│   │   └── public.yaml
│   ├── ue2
│   │   ├── audit.yaml
...
│   │   └── root.yaml
│   └── globals.yaml
├── plat
│   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── dev.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   ├── ue2
│   │   ├── dev.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   └── globals.yaml
└── globals.yaml

Option 3: Put root level stacks in order tenant/account/region instead of tenant/region/account​

  • stacks/catalog

  • stacks/mixins/<env>

  • stacks/<tenant>

✗ tree -L 3 stacks --dirsfirst
stacks
├── catalog
│   ├── argocd
...
│   └── waf.yaml
├── mixins
│   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── artifacts.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   ├── ue1
│   │   └── globals.yaml
│   └── ue2
│       ├── audit.yaml
...
│       └── staging.yaml
├── plat
│   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── dev.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   ├── ue2
│   │   ├── dev.yaml
...
│   │   └── staging.yaml
│   └── globals.yaml
├── tenants
│   ├── core
│   │   ├── gbl
│   │   ├── ue1
│   │   ├── ue2
│   │   └── globals.yaml
│   └── plat
│       ├── gbl
│       ├── ue2
│       └── globals.yaml
└── globals.yaml

Option 4: Use an organization directory​

Use a filesystem hierarchy that mirrors the AWS hierarchy: Organization → OU → Account → Region → Resources

  • stacks/catalog/

  • e.g. eks/cluster.yaml

  • stacks/mixins/

  • e.g. regions/us-east-1.yaml

  • stacks/orgs/<namespace>/<ou>/<account>/<region>.yaml

namespaceThe namespace for the organization
ouTypically the tenant name
accountThe stage within the tenant
regionThe canonical AWS region

Use fully spelled out canonical region name (e.g. us-east-1)

Use global-region.yaml for resources that are not tied to any particular region (e.g. Route53).

Use _defaults.yaml for any other default settings.

Decision​

DECIDED:

Consequences​

References​