Reference Library
Everything this playbook links out to, in one place. Each competency page carries the handful of references that belong to it; this page is the full index — including the material that is broader than any single competency (architecture styles, cross-domain checklists, tool catalogues, and the daily feeds).
The Sources
| Source | What it is | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture Field Notes | Practitioner notes on architecture decisions, styles, and trade-offs | Deciding before you build — and writing down why |
| IT Automation Playbook | Automation practice by domain, plus real case studies | Choosing what to automate and how far to take it |
| handson | Install guides, runbooks and playbooks that were actually run | Building the hands-on evidence a competency asks for |
| Field Cases | Real production failures with root cause and fix, plus the concepts each one turns on and an incident map across them | Debugging patterns, interview war stories |
| IT Checklists | Standardized review lists across IT domains | The gate you run before shipping or handing over |
| IT Template Library | Ready-to-fill documents for delivery, ops, and compliance | Producing the artifact instead of formatting one |
| Pipeline Field Guide | End-to-end walkthroughs of how a change reaches production | Explaining delivery flow to a team or an interviewer |
| Toolian | Catalogue of practitioner tools by category | Finding the small tool that removes a daily papercut |
| Framework Thinking | Governance, EA, quality and compliance frameworks | The management-side vocabulary DevOps work is judged in |
| Release Board | Nightly GO / HOLD / NO-GO verdicts on 99 products (releases, EOL, CVEs) | Upgrade and end-of-life decisions |
| CuraDevOps · CuraSec · OSS Insights | Daily Act / Plan / Learn verdicts on DevOps, security, and open-source signals | Keeping the landscape on this site current |
Architecture Field Notes
Chapters that sit above any one competency — the ones tied to a specific competency are linked from its page.
- Foundations — The Boring Baseline · Constraints First · Coupling and Cohesion in Practice · Irreversible Decisions · Trade-off Sliders
- Styles — Monolith First, Split on Evidence · Microservices: The Itemised Bill · Event-Driven · Serverless and Managed Services · Layered (N-Tier) · Ports and Adapters · CQRS and Read Models · Data Platform Styles · Per-User Instances
- System design — Service Boundaries That Survive Reorgs · Synchronous vs Asynchronous Integration
- Data and state — Choosing a Datastore Without Regret · Consistency Models You Actually Need · Caching: The Four Questions · Event Sourcing and CDC · Schema Migrations Without Downtime
Checklists Beyond DevOps and Operations
The DevOps and Operations sections are linked from the competency pages. The rest of the library covers the domains a DevOps role touches from the side:
Cloud · Security · Networking · Data · Development · Compliance · ITSM
Templates
Delivery, operations, security and project templates are linked from the matching competency pages. The design-document set sits here:
Solution Architecture Document · Technical Design Document · API Specification · Data Model Document
Full library by category: Architecture & Design · Development & Release · Operations & Incident · Testing & QA · Security & Compliance · Requirements · Project Management
Pipeline Field Guide
Your First Change · Pull Request to Production · Deploy Request · Feature Rollout · Product Events · Delivery Platform · Diagrams
Tool Catalogue
Toolian indexes practitioner tools by category — the DevOps-adjacent ones:
DevOps · Observability · Security · Automation · Git · Network · Terminal · Files · Editor · AI · AI Media · Vibe Infra · Linux Desktop · Writing · Getting Started
For the opinionated, production-adoption view of the same space, see the Tools Landscape.
Governance & Framework Thinking
Framework Thinking covers the management-side frameworks that DevOps work gets audited and budgeted against — useful when a competency has to be defended outside engineering:
IT Governance · Enterprise Architecture · Security Governance · Data & AI Governance · Quality Management · Software Engineering · Infrastructure & Operations · Legal & Compliance · Modern Organization · Economic Analysis · Future Technology
Daily Feeds
| Feed | Lanes |
|---|---|
| Release Board — nightly release, EOL and CVE sweep over 99 products | GO · HOLD · NO-GO per product |
| CuraDevOps — DevOps and platform signals | Act · Plan · Learn · RSS |
| CuraSec — security signals against KEV, EPSS, public PoC | Act · Plan · Learn · RSS |
| OSS Insights — open-source releases, projects and discussion worth acting on | Insights · Verdicts · RSS |