Objective:
To build a progressively complex application that reinforces critical DevOps concepts and practices such as:
- CI/CD
- Containerisation
- Orchestration
- Observability
- Environment management
- Infrastructure iteration and recovery
This project is rooted in learning by doing.
My background in IT has been diverse, providing a broad range of skills and experiences. However, I haven’t had the opportunity to consistently apply core DevOps practices over an extended period — this project aims to change that.
The idea is simple: To learn DevOps by building and evolving a real system.
Not a toy project — but a deliberately scoped system that grows in complexity over time to mirror production concerns.
This is not meant to showcase any existing coding knowledge. Instead, it aims to showcase:
- DevOps mindset
- System design
- Infrastructure lifecycle awareness
- Planning for scale, reliability, and maintainability
AI — specifically OpenAI's ChatGPT 4o-mini — has been used throughout this project for:
- Code scaffolding
- Debugging and error resolution
- Conceptual breakdowns and architecture planning
Every piece of AI-generated code has been reviewed, understood, modified, and tested by me.
The use of AI is transparent, intentional, and ethically grounded. The idea is to reflect real-world practices where productivity tools are used to accelerate development. I am not trying to be a one-man team — I am leveraging AI as both a learning tool and as a dev team member.
Where relevant, I will disclose:
- What code was AI-assisted
- What decisions were mine
- What failures I encountered and how I resolved them
This project follows a milestone-based rollout schedule, reflecting real-world internal DevOps tooling.
| Date | Version | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 05/05/25 | v1 | Initial release. Functional proof of concept. |
| 15/05/25 | v2 | DB integration via multi-container setup. |
Each release will include changelogs, documentation, and rationale for architectural decisions.
label-generator/
├── v1/ # Version 1 - Functional PoC
│ ├── app/ # Core Python app code (Flask or similar)
│ ├── Dockerfile # Container setup
│ ├── podman-compose.yml # Runtime orchestration for local testing
│ └── README.md # Version-specific usage and decisions
├── README.md # Main project README (you are here)