# Production Readiness Review — Phase 10-07, Task 5

**Date:** 2026-03-06  
**Status:** IN PROGRESS  
**Owner:** Architect / PM Autonomy  
**Target:** Production launch sign-off

---

## 1. Security Review ✅ AUDITED

### 1.1 Secrets Management

**Current State (Staging):**
- ✅ Template pattern (secrets-template.yaml) — safe to commit, never commit real values
- ✅ Multiple deployment options documented:
  - Option A: Direct apply (dev/staging only)
  - Option B: Sealed Secrets (kubeseal recommended)
  - Option C: External Secrets Operator (production best practice)

**Production Requirements (Sign-Off Gate):**
- [ ] **MANDATORY:** Use sealed-secrets OR External Secrets Operator (Vault/AWS Secrets Manager)
  - ❌ Direct secrets YAML not allowed in production
  - Recommendation: AWS Secrets Manager + External Secrets Operator (if AWS) OR Vault
- [ ] JWT_SECRET generation verified (64-char hex minimum)
  - Example: `openssl rand -hex 64`
  - Rotation policy: Every 90 days
- [ ] Database credentials use strong passwords (min 32 chars, random)
- [ ] TLS private keys protected (encrypted at rest, RBAC restricted)
- [ ] No hardcoded secrets in container images (scan before push)
- [ ] Secrets rotation procedure documented

**Status:** ⏳ Awaiting implementation — recommend kubeseal integration pre-production

---

### 1.2 RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)

**Current State (Staging):**
- ✅ Least-privilege design implemented
  - ServiceAccount: `gravl-deployer` (no cluster-admin)
  - Role: gravl-staging-deployer (scoped to gravl-staging namespace)
  - Permissions: Specific resources (deployments, services, configmaps, ingress)
  - ✅ Secrets: READ-ONLY (no create/delete)
- ✅ ClusterRole for read-only cluster access (namespaces, nodes, storageclasses)
- ✅ No wildcard permissions ("*") — explicit resource lists
- ✅ No escalation paths (verb: "create" on rolebindings denied)

**Production Sign-Off:**
- [x] Principle of least privilege verified
- [x] No cluster-admin role binding found
- [x] Secrets operations restricted (no create/delete/patch)
- [x] Cross-namespace access explicitly allowed only for monitoring (ingress-nginx)
- [ ] Additional: Review production-specific accounts (backup operator, logging sidecar)
  - Add LimitRange to prevent resource exhaustion
  - Add PodSecurityPolicy / Pod Security Standards enforcement

**Status:** ✅ APPROVED — RBAC baseline acceptable for production

---

### 1.3 Network Policies

**Current State (Staging):**
- ✅ Default deny ingress (allowlist pattern)
- ✅ Explicit rules for:
  - ingress-nginx → backend (port 3000)
  - ingress-nginx → frontend (port 80)
  - backend → postgres (port 5432)
  - gravl-monitoring scraping (port 3001 metrics)
- ✅ Namespace-based pod selection (ingress-nginx selector)

**Production Sign-Off:**
- [x] Default deny verified
- [x] All inter-pod communication explicitly allowed
- [x] Monitoring namespace access restricted to scrape ports only
- [ ] Additional rules needed:
  - [ ] Egress policies (if restrictive DNS/external access required)
  - [ ] DNS (CoreDNS access) — currently implicit, should be explicit
  - [ ] Logs egress (if using external log aggregation)
  - Recommendation: Add explicit egress for DNS (port 53 UDP/TCP)

**Status:** ⏳ CONDITIONAL — Needs DNS egress rule before production

---

### 1.4 Encryption & TLS

**Current State:**
- ✅ TLS secret template provided (staging-tls)
- ✅ Two options documented:
  - Self-signed for testing (90 days)
  - cert-manager with auto-renewal (recommended)
- ❌ **CRITICAL:** TLS certificate generation NOT DOCUMENTED FOR PRODUCTION

**Production Sign-Off:**
- [ ] **MANDATORY:** cert-manager installed on production cluster
  - [ ] ClusterIssuer configured (Let's Encrypt or internal CA)
  - [ ] Ingress annotated with cert-manager issuer
- [ ] TLS enforced (HTTP → HTTPS redirect)
- [ ] Ingress TLS termination verified

**Status:** ❌ NOT READY — Requires cert-manager setup pre-launch

---

## 2. Production Deployment Checklist

| Item | Status | Notes |
|------|--------|-------|
| Staging deployment complete | ✅ YES | Prometheus, Grafana, AlertManager operational |
| All services healthy (0 restarts) | ✅ YES | Monitored via Prometheus |
| Database migrations validated | ⏳ PENDING | Verify on production cluster |
| DNS/ingress configured for prod | ⏳ PENDING | Staging: staging.gravl.app — Prod: ??? |
| TLS certificate strategy | ❌ NOT SETUP | Action item: Install cert-manager |
| Backup procedure tested | ❌ BLOCKED | StorageClass missing (Task 4 blocker) |
| Secrets sealed | ⏳ PENDING | Awaiting sealed-secrets OR External Secrets |
| Network policies in place | ⏳ PENDING | Add DNS egress rule |
| RBAC reviewed | ✅ APPROVED | Least privilege verified |
| Monitoring dashboards ready | ✅ YES | Grafana dashboards operational |
| Alerting configured | ⏳ PENDING | Review production-specific thresholds |

---

## 3. Critical Path to Production (Ordered by Dependency)

**Immediate (Block Launch):**
1. Install cert-manager + create ClusterIssuer (security gate)
2. Implement sealed-secrets OR External Secrets Operator (security gate)
3. Add DNS egress NetworkPolicy (operational necessity)
4. Load test on staging (p95 <200ms verification)

**High Priority (Should block):**
5. Set up image scanning (ECR/Snyk)
6. Configure production alerting thresholds
7. Create production runbooks

**Medium Priority (Launch + 24h):**
8. Remediate Loki storage + backup job (Task 4 blockers)
9. Implement secrets rotation automation

---

## 4. Security Sign-Off Summary

### Approved ✅
- RBAC: Least privilege, no cluster-admin
- Network Policies: Default deny with explicit allowlist
- Secrets template pattern: Safe for committed code

### Conditional ⏳
- Secrets management: Requires sealed-secrets OR External Secrets Operator
- TLS/Encryption: Requires cert-manager setup

### Not Ready ❌
- Image scanning: Requires ECR/Snyk integration
- Backup integration: Blocked on StorageClass

---

## 5. Recommendation

**🚫 DO NOT LAUNCH** until critical path items #1-4 are complete.

**Estimated Time to Production Ready:** 6-8 hours

**Next Steps:**
1. Assign critical path tasks to DevOps engineer
2. Parallel track: Complete load testing
3. Parallel track: Finalize go-live & rollback procedures
4. Reconvene for final security sign-off before launch

---

**Document Version:** 1.0  
**Last Updated:** 2026-03-06 08:50  
**Next Review:** Before production launch (within 24h)

---

## Addendum: Load Test Configuration & Execution

### Load Test Script Location
- `k8s/production/load-test.js` (k6 script)

### Load Test Execution (Pre-Production)

```bash
# Install k6 (if not already installed)
# macOS: brew install k6
# Linux: apt-get install k6
# Or use Docker: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/scripts grafana/k6:latest run /scripts/load-test.js

# Run load test against staging environment
export GRAVL_API_URL="https://staging.gravl.app"
k6 run k8s/production/load-test.js

# Expected output (PASSING):
# p95 latency: <200ms
# p99 latency: <500ms
# Error rate: <0.1%
```

### Load Test Results (Staging Baseline)

**TO BE COMPLETED:** Run load test on staging environment before production launch.

Expected throughput: >100 req/s
Expected p95 latency: <200ms
Expected error rate: <0.1%