railiance-platform/INTENT.md

# INTENT

> This file captures **why this repository exists**,
> the **direction it is moving toward**, and
> the **kind of system it is meant to become**.
> It is intentionally **aspirational and stable**, not a description of current implementation.

---

## One-liner

**The shared platform-services layer — the dependable foundation of stateful services (data, cache, secrets, object storage, messaging) that everything else builds on.**

---

## Why This Exists

Applications should not each reinvent, operate, and secure their own
databases, caches, secret stores, object storage, and message brokers.

When every application carries its own copy of these services, the result
is:

* duplicated operational burden,
* inconsistent durability and backup guarantees,
* and a sprawling, hard-to-secure surface.

This layer exists to provide those stateful services **once, operably, and
consistently**, so that everything built above it can assume a reliable,
backed-up, secure substrate instead of building one each time.

---

## The Mission

> *Where we are going.*

To become the **canonical home for shared, stateful platform services** —
where data persistence, caching, secret custody, object storage,
messaging, and their backup and recovery are provided as well-operated,
independently evolvable services behind stable interfaces.

This means:

* Stateful services are operated to clear **durability, availability, and
  recovery** guarantees
* Secret material has a **dependable custody and delivery** mechanism
* Consumers depend on **stable service interfaces**, not on internal topology
* The layer can **evolve** — operators, engines, versions, topologies —
  without breaking what is built on it

---

## Core Principles

### 1. Shared, Not Duplicated

Provide each stateful service once and well, rather than letting every
application carry and operate its own.

### 2. Stable Interfaces over Internal Detail

Consumers bind to service contracts. The operators, engines, and
topologies behind those contracts can change underneath without forcing
changes above.

### 3. Durable by Default

Persistence, backup, and **tested** recovery are part of providing a
service — not an afterthought added later.

### 4. Secure Custody

Secret material is held and delivered through a dependable authority,
never scattered across the consumers that need it.

In OAS terms this layer carries **Q1 Security and Compliance** on the Quality
dimension — approval gates, delegated apply, revocation semantics, and
front-door readiness. That practice was built before the dimension was named;
naming it does not change what S3 does, it makes the responsibility legible to
the rest of the fleet.

### 5. Operable and Observable

Every service is monitored, recoverable, and diagnosable as a first-class
property.

Observability itself is **not** this layer's to own. It is **Q2** and belongs to
`railiance-telemetry`; S3's obligation is to *emit* through the standard
contract rather than to build its own monitoring. The recoverability half is
**Q3**, currently unowned across the fleet.

### 6. Independently Evolvable

The layer can adopt new operators or engines, and migrate between them,
without forcing rewrites in the things that depend on it.

---

## What This Is (Conceptually)

This layer is:

* a **shared platform-services layer**
* a dependable **substrate of stateful infrastructure**
* a **custody and delivery point** for secret material
* a **backup and recovery home** for platform data
* a **stable interface surface** for the services consumers depend on

---

## What This Is Not

This layer is not:

* an application or business-capability provider
* the infrastructure or cluster runtime beneath it
* an identity or authorization authority
* a place for application-specific logic

It is the **stateful foundation** that other systems rely on.

---

## Direction of Evolution

This layer is expected to evolve toward:

* **Consolidation** of stateful services behind well-operated operators
* Stronger **durability, backup, and disaster-recovery** guarantees
* Dependable **runtime secret custody and delivery**
* Clear, **versioned service interfaces** for consumers
* **Self-healing and observable** platform services

---

## Guiding Question

> **How can the stateful foundation an entire landscape relies on be made dependable, secure, and recoverable — while remaining free to evolve underneath everything built on it?**