Per Phase 1 audit at cowork/docs-overhaul-phase-1-audit-2026-05-04/.
README went from 457 lines to a target of 250 (operator decision in
Phase 1 conversation). Focus shifts from feature-catalog + landing-page
duplicate to "developer cloning the repo needs orientation + quickstart
+ entry points to docs."
What stayed:
- Logo + title + badges (~15 lines)
- Elevator paragraph + 47-day cliff context (3 paragraphs, compressed)
- Active-maintenance callout
- Documentation table — restructured from 22 entries linking to flat
docs/ to ~6 audience-organized rows linking through the new
docs/README.md navigation index
- Screenshots grid (4 tiles)
- "What it does" — compressed from 33 lines of prose to 8 capability
bullets, each linking to the canonical doc
- Architecture paragraph — compressed to one paragraph linking to
docs/reference/architecture.md
- Quick Start (Docker Compose, Agent install, Helm, container images)
- Examples table (5 turnkey scenarios)
- Development commands
- License paragraph
- Dependencies block
- Footer CTA
What got moved out:
- Cosign verification / SLSA / SBOM section (67 lines) →
docs/reference/release-verification.md (NEW). README links to it
in a 3-line "Verifying a release" section.
What got removed entirely:
- "Why certctl" + "Architecture" + "Security-first" + "Key design
decisions" prose walls — duplicated landing page + architecture.md +
security.md content. README no longer wades through 11 dense
paragraphs.
- "Supported Integrations" 4 sub-tables (Issuers / Targets / Protocols
/ Standards / Notifiers, ~80 lines of dense per-row marketing
copy) — content lives at docs/reference/connectors/index.md and
docs/reference/protocols/. README mentions counts ("12 issuers, 15
targets, 6 notifiers") with a single link.
- "Roadmap" section entirely — V1 + V2 history rotted fastest of any
section; replaced with implicit "see Releases + Issues for active
work" via the existing footer CTA.
- "What It Does" 10-subsection wall (33 lines) — replaced with the
8-bullet capability list, each linking to its canonical doc.
- CLI section (20 lines of inline command examples) — links to the
contributor docs.
- MCP Server section (30 lines of setup) — links to docs/reference/mcp.md.
New surface added:
- docs/reference/release-verification.md — moved cosign/SLSA/SBOM
procedure with one expanded "Why this matters" paragraph
explaining the keyless OIDC trust anchor.
Every docs/ link in the new README verified to resolve to an existing
file. Cross-references from other docs / certctl.io to the deleted
sections (if any) need follow-up Phase 11 sweeps.
Per Phase 1 audit at cowork/docs-overhaul-phase-1-audit-2026-05-04/.
Phase 4 in the audit recommended a full split of connectors.md (2055
lines) into an index + 27 per-connector pages (12 issuer + 15 target).
This commit lands the structural half of that work; full per-target
page extraction is deferred to follow-up commits.
Renames (all blame-preserving):
docs/connectors.md → docs/reference/connectors/index.md
docs/connector-apache.md → docs/reference/connectors/apache.md
docs/connector-f5.md → docs/reference/connectors/f5.md
docs/connector-iis.md → docs/reference/connectors/iis.md
docs/connector-k8s.md → docs/reference/connectors/k8s.md
docs/connector-nginx.md → docs/reference/connectors/nginx.md
Edits:
- docs/reference/connectors/index.md gets a top-of-doc note
explaining the per-connector deep-dive sibling pattern + a forward
list of the 5 per-target pages.
- The 5 per-connector deep-dive pages each get a `Last reviewed:
2026-05-05` header + a back-link to the index.
Deferred to future commits (Phase 4b/c follow-on):
- Extracting the 12 issuer sections from index.md into per-issuer
pages at reference/connectors/{acme,awsacmpca,digicert,ejbca,
entrust,globalsign,googlecas,local,openssl,sectigo,stepca,vault}.md
- Extracting the 10 remaining target sections from index.md into
per-target pages at reference/connectors/{caddy,traefik,envoy,
haproxy,postfix-dovecot,ssh,javakeystore,wincertstore,awsacm,
azurekv}.md
The pragmatic split makes this Phase 4 work incrementally landable —
each per-connector extraction is a small follow-up commit that doesn't
change the docs/ tree shape further. Cross-references from README.md
and other docs to docs/connectors.md still need fixing in Phase 11.
The 519-line legacy-est-scep.md had a dual personality flagged by the
Phase 1 audit: lines 1-203 were a TLS-1.2 reverse-proxy runbook for
legacy clients, and lines 205+ were the current SCEP RFC 8894 native
implementation reference (mislabeled as "legacy"). Two separate audiences,
two separate purposes.
Split:
Lines 1-203 (TLS-1.2 reverse-proxy runbook):
→ docs/operator/legacy-clients-tls-1.2.md (NEW)
Operator runbook for the case where embedded EST/SCEP clients only
speak TLS 1.2. Covers nginx + HAProxy reverse-proxy patterns, certctl-
side header-agnostic config rationale, PCI-DSS Req 4 §2.2.5 attestation,
deprecation timeline. Also got a fresh "What this is" framing.
Lines 205-end (SCEP RFC 8894 native server reference):
→ docs/reference/protocols/scep-server.md (NEW)
Generic SCEP server protocol reference: RA cert + key configuration,
GetCACaps capability advertisement, supported messageTypes, MVP
backward-compat path, multi-profile dispatch, must-staple per-profile
policy, mTLS sibling route, Microsoft Intune dynamic-challenge
dispatcher. Cross-links to scep-intune.md for Intune-specific
deployment guidance.
Both new docs carry a `Last reviewed: 2026-05-05` line. Internal links
within each new doc updated to the new sibling paths. Cross-references
from other docs to legacy-est-scep.md still need fixing in Phase 11.
Original docs/legacy-est-scep.md deleted (git history preserves).
shankar0123