Architect: start

Architect

The board running the infrastructure your repositories run on, and you still deciding what changes. What Architect is, how a change goes, what stays true, its words, and where to read on.

Architect is the part of the board that runs what your repositories run on: their Workers, databases, namespaces, buckets, queues, containers, routes, and custom domains. It came in 2.0.0, it runs on Cloudflare, and it’s off until you connect a provider. Until then the board makes no call for it.

It works the way the rest of the board does. What should exist is a file in the repository. Agents change it by pull request. The board works out the exact change, a plan, and the plan waits for you. You press Approve, and a workflow in the repository applies it, with a write token the board never holds. Then the board checks health, and rolls back by itself if the check fails.

#How a change goes

the file: what should exist     Cloudflare: what runs
staging.json                    (the read-only token)
            \                     /
             the board compares them
                       |
                       v
     a plan: what changes, what it costs,
     what else it touches, can it be undone
                       |
     the policy: it waits for you, or it
     fits bounds you approved once
                       |
               you press Approve
                       |
                       v
     the repository's apply workflow, with
     staging's write token, from a GitHub
     environment only the default branch uses
                       |
                       v
     the board checks health, and rolls
     back by itself if the check fails

Every step is on the board: the plan as it forms, your approval, the run, and the health check, on the environment’s page and in its audit trail. A plan that waits for you sends one push, so you can approve from your phone.

#Two lanes: code, and what it runs on

Architect doesn’t replace the deploy flow. They’re two lanes, and a repository can use either or both.

On a repository with both, staging and production are one pair of environments: their deploys, Promotes, and Roll backs show on the same pages as their plans. Architect and the deploy flow says how to set up an app and its infrastructure together.

#What stays true

• Agents propose and never apply. They read everything and change infrastructure only by pull request. They never hold a write token, start the apply workflow, or press Approve.
• Nothing changes without your approval, or inside bounds you approved once on an environment: an envelope, or a policy you loosened. Until then, every plan waits for you, in every environment.
• The board holds no write credentials. It keeps one read-only token per provider. Each environment’s write token lives in a GitHub environment in its repository, and only the apply workflow reads it, for one plan you approved.
• The board only watches its own install. The environment the board runs on is always observe only: no plans, no envelope, no apply. Its way back is Recover without the board.
• Your data stays in your install. The board keeps names, kinds, settings, health, and cost, never a secret’s value, a stored value, or code. The read-only token goes only to its provider.

#The words

Architect uses the same few words everywhere: on the board, in pushes, in the CLI, and here.

#Where it shows

• Infrastructure, in the sidebar (g then n): each repository’s environments, with health, drift, estimated cost, freeze, and the plan waiting. Add an environment and Policy are here.
• An environment’s page, its console: what runs there as a map, a live stream of what happens, its plans, incidents, drift, deploys, cost, and audit trail. You change it here too.
• A plan’s page, the link a waiting plan’s push carries, with Approve and Reject.
• The inbox: incidents lead it, production’s first.
• A repository’s settings page, under Infrastructure: the policy in force, each environment’s freeze, and its envelope.
• Connections: the provider’s token, and each repository’s Infrastructure tokens checklist.
• Settings, under The board: the currency costs show in.
• The terminal: npx breakaway infra and its reads, for you and your agents (Agents and infrastructure).

#Read on