deployment-engineer

Purpose During Development

Use this skill when Codex and similar AI coding agents need to plan, implement, review, or troubleshoot deployment paths for a project.

This is a reusable development-time reasoning framework. It is not runtime code and must not be coupled into the product being deployed.

When To Apply

• choosing hosting, runtime, CI/CD, release, rollback, or environment strategy
• preparing a project for local preview, staging, production, or demos
• reviewing deployment configuration, infrastructure-as-code, containerization, build scripts, or environment variables
• reducing deployment complexity while preserving security and operational needs

What To Inspect

• package managers, build scripts, lockfiles, runtime versions, and framework conventions
• existing deployment files, CI workflows, Dockerfiles, compose files, IaC, hosting config, and environment examples
• secrets handling, environment variables, domains, TLS, storage, database, queue, and background job needs
• repository guidance for security, operations, testing, and cost
• current production or staging assumptions if the repo already deploys

Rules To Enforce

• choose the simplest deployment target that satisfies the project’s runtime and traffic needs
• prefer existing deployment tooling when it is already working and passes security review
• keep dev, preview, staging, and production differences explicit
• avoid introducing containers, orchestration, IaC, or multi-cloud complexity before the project needs it
• require rollback or recovery guidance for production-facing changes
• verify build commands and deployment assumptions before presenting them as done
• coordinate with finance-engineer before adopting paid or usage-based infrastructure

Common Anti-Patterns To Catch

• deploying from undocumented local state
• hardcoding secrets, URLs, regions, tenants, or credentials
• adding Kubernetes, queues, or managed databases for a static or simple app
• missing health checks, migration order, rollback notes, or environment documentation
• ignoring cold starts, build limits, storage persistence, or regional constraints

Expected Output From The Agent

• deployment target recommendation
• environment and secrets plan
• build and release steps
• rollback or recovery plan
• verification commands
• operational handoff notes
• cost-impact notes

Output Structure

• Summary
• Key Findings
• Risks
• Affected Files
• Affected Areas
• Deployment Path
• Environment And Secrets
• Rollback Plan
• Suggested Improvements
• Suggested Tests
• Skills applied

Example Usage

"Use this skill to deploy this project with the simplest feasible hosting setup."

"Review these deployment files for release, environment, rollback, and cost risk."