Operator policy: docs in the public repo must help (a) a user
deploying certctl or (b) the product story. Internal engineering
process documentation belongs in cowork/ scratchpads or in git
commit history, not docs/.
Removed (docs/contributor/, 8 files, 2,323 lines):
- release-sign-off.md — internal release-day checklist
- ci-pipeline.md — what runs in CI (internal)
- ci-guards.md — what the guards are (internal)
- testing-strategy.md — internal testing strategy
- qa-test-suite.md — internal QA reference (445 lines)
- qa-prerequisites.md — internal QA setup
- gui-qa-checklist.md — manual GUI QA checklist
- test-environment.md — 1,103-line redundant with
docs/getting-started/quickstart.md +
docs/getting-started/advanced-demo.md
Removed supporting script:
- scripts/qa-doc-seed-count.sh — CI guard for the deleted
qa-test-suite.md seed-data table
Cross-reference cleanup:
- README.md: dropped the Contributor audience row + footer
pointer to docs/contributor/.
- Makefile: dropped `verify-docs` target + qa-stats comment refs.
- .github/workflows/ci.yml: dropped the QA-doc seed-count drift
CI step + dead comment refs.
- docs/reference/cli.md: repointed qa-prerequisites.md → quickstart.md.
- docs/operator/performance-baselines.md: dropped ci-pipeline.md
cross-ref.
- scripts/ci-guards/README.md: dropped the 'Guards explicitly
NOT here' section that referenced the deleted QA-doc guards.
G-3 env-docs-drift guard improvements (a real consequence: deleting
the contributor docs surfaced that some env vars only had a home
there). Refit the guard to the new doc topology:
- Defined-scan widened from `config.go + cmd/*` to all of `cmd/ +
internal/` (production code), excluding `*_test.go` — catches
service-layer env vars like CERTCTL_STEPCA_ROOT_CERT and
CERTCTL_ZEROSSL_EAB_URL that were previously invisible to the
guard.
- Docs-scan widened to include deploy/ENVIRONMENTS.md (the
canonical env-var inventory table — should have been in scope
from day one). Kept narrow to README + docs/ + deploy/helm/ +
ENVIRONMENTS.md to avoid pulling in compose/test fixtures.
- ALLOWED filter now applies to both DOCS_ONLY and CONFIG_ONLY
directions, so dynamic per-profile dispatch surfaces
(CERTCTL_SCEP_PROFILE_<NAME>_*, CERTCTL_EST_PROFILE_<NAME>_*,
CERTCTL_QA_*) don't need static doc entries.
- Added CERTCTL_SCEP_PROFILE_[A-Z_]+ and CERTCTL_EST_PROFILE_[A-Z_]+
to ALLOWED for the same reason.
deploy/ENVIRONMENTS.md: added CERTCTL_ZEROSSL_EAB_URL row — real
operator override (overrides the ZeroSSL EAB-credentials endpoint;
read at internal/connector/issuer/acme/acme.go:372) that was
defined in Go source but never documented. G-3 caught it after the
defined-scan widened.
scripts/ci-guards/S-1-hardcoded-source-counts.sh: removed dead
WORKSPACE-CHANGELOG.md allowlist entry (the file was deleted in
the prior workspace cleanup).
Verified:
All 35 scripts/ci-guards/*.sh green (FAIL=0).
No remaining references to docs/contributor/ or qa-doc-seed-count
in tracked files.
Per Phase 1 audit at cowork/docs-overhaul-phase-1-audit-2026-05-04/
and the section-by-section plan in testing-guide-tumor.md.
testing-guide.md was 30% of all docs/ content (8268 lines) but was
integration test code written in markdown, not operator documentation.
The audit's tumor analysis disposed of every Part:
- ~65% DELETE (test cases that already exist in code)
- ~22% MOVE to inline test code
- ~8% KEEP-COMPRESSED into focused operator-runbook docs
- Title + contents + release sign-off ~5% KEEP
This commit ships the KEEP-COMPRESSED dispersal:
docs/contributor/qa-prerequisites.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Prerequisites" section. Stack boot procedure,
demo data baseline, reference IDs operators reuse across QA docs.
docs/contributor/gui-qa-checklist.md (NEW, ~105 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 35: GUI Testing". Manual GUI verification
pass for release sign-off. 25-row table covering every dashboard page.
docs/contributor/release-sign-off.md (NEW, ~130 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Release Sign-Off" section (originally 1009
lines of per-test detail tables). Compressed to a release-day
checklist organized by gate category: code state, automated gates,
manual QA passes, release artefact verification, branch protection,
post-release.
docs/operator/performance-baselines.md (NEW, ~100 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 39: Performance Spot Checks". Four
operator-runnable benchmarks (API request handling, inventory list
pagination, scheduler tick, bulk revoke) with baseline numbers and
when-to-re-baseline guidance.
docs/operator/helm-deployment.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 52: Helm Chart Deployment". Operator
runbook for the bundled deploy/helm/certctl/ chart: prereqs,
install, four cert-source patterns, verify, upgrade, troubleshooting.
docs/reference/cli.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 28: CLI Tool". certctl-cli command
reference with command-group breakdown, common workflows
(list/filter, renew, revoke, bulk import, EST enrollment, status),
output formats, CI/CD integration patterns.
docs/README.md navigation index updated to include the 6 new docs:
Reference section gains: cli.md, release-verification.md (was added
in Phase 13)
Operator section gains: helm-deployment.md, performance-baselines.md
Contributor section gains: qa-prerequisites.md, gui-qa-checklist.md,
release-sign-off.md
docs/testing-guide.md deleted. Git history preserves the 8268 lines —
if any specific test case is found missing from inline test code or
the destination docs during future work, lift from `git show
HEAD~1:docs/testing-guide.md`.
Net: docs/ total line count drops by ~7700 lines (28%), from 26,369
to 18,742. testing-guide.md was the single largest doc; pruning it is
the single biggest content-edit win of the entire restructure.
Phase 5 is the last major content phase. Remaining: Phase 4 follow-on
(per-connector page extractions from reference/connectors/index.md),
Phase 15 (WHAT/HOW/WHY remediation), Phase 16 (final acceptance gate).
shankar0123