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DevOps Tooling Reference

#programming #cheatsheet #devops #python

DevOps Tooling Reference

Cut through the noise of the DevOps ecosystem. This reference pack maps the entire tooling landscape — CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring and observability, container orchestration, and service mesh — with side-by-side comparison charts so you can make informed technology choices instead of following hype. Each tool gets a one-page summary with setup snippets, key commands, and integration patterns.

What's Included

  • CI/CD Pipeline Tools — GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI, ArgoCD, Drone
  • Infrastructure as Code — Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible, Crossplane
  • Monitoring & Observability — Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, ELK Stack, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry
  • Container Runtimes — Docker, containerd, Podman, CRI-O
  • Service Mesh — Istio, Linkerd, Consul Connect, Cilium
  • GitOps Workflows — ArgoCD, Flux, deployment strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling)
  • Comparison Charts — 6 head-to-head comparison tables across all categories

Preview / Sample Content

GitHub Actions — Essential Workflow Syntax 

name: CI Pipeline
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build-and-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        python-version: ["3.11", "3.12"]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt
      - run: pytest --cov=src tests/
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: coverage-${{ matrix.python-version }}
          path: coverage.xml
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Terraform — Core Workflow Commands 

# Initialize working directory (download providers)
terraform init

# Preview changes without applying
terraform plan -out=tfplan

# Apply changes from saved plan
terraform apply tfplan

# Destroy all managed resources
terraform destroy

# Format all .tf files
terraform fmt -recursive

# Validate configuration syntax
terraform validate

# Import existing resource into state
terraform import aws_instance.web i-1234567890abcdef0

# Show current state
terraform state list
terraform state show aws_instance.web

# Taint a resource for forced recreation
terraform taint aws_instance.web

# Workspace management (environment isolation)
terraform workspace new staging
terraform workspace select production
terraform workspace list
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Prometheus — PromQL Quick Reference 

# Rate of HTTP requests per second over 5 minutes
rate(http_requests_total[5m])

# 95th percentile latency
histogram_quantile(0.95, rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m]))

# Error rate percentage
sum(rate(http_requests_total{status=~"5.."}[5m]))
/ sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m])) * 100

# Top 5 endpoints by request volume
topk(5, sum by (handler) (rate(http_requests_total[5m])))

# Alert-worthy: high error rate
http_requests_total{status="500"} / http_requests_total > 0.05
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Quick Reference Table

Tool Category Language Config Format Best For
Terraform IaC Go HCL Multi-cloud infra provisioning
Ansible IaC/Config Python YAML Server configuration management
Pulumi IaC Go Python/TS/Go Devs who prefer real code over DSL
GitHub Actions CI/CD N/A YAML GitHub-native projects
GitLab CI CI/CD N/A YAML Self-hosted, all-in-one DevOps
ArgoCD GitOps Go YAML/Helm K8s-native continuous delivery
Prometheus Monitoring Go YAML Metrics collection + alerting
Grafana Visualization Go JSON Dashboards for any data source
Jaeger Tracing Go YAML Distributed request tracing
Istio Service Mesh Go YAML Full-featured mesh with Envoy
Linkerd Service Mesh Rust YAML Lightweight, easy-to-adopt mesh

Comparison: IaC Tools

Feature Terraform Pulumi CloudFormation Ansible
State Management Remote backend Managed/self-hosted AWS-managed Stateless
Language HCL Python/TS/Go/C# JSON/YAML YAML
Cloud Support Multi-cloud Multi-cloud AWS only Multi-cloud
Drift Detection plan command preview command Drift detection Idempotent runs
Learning Curve Medium Low (if you code) Medium Low
Modularity Modules + Registry Packages (npm/pip) Nested stacks Roles + Galaxy
Dry Run terraform plan pulumi preview Change sets --check mode

Comparison: CI/CD Platforms

Feature GitHub Actions GitLab CI Jenkins CircleCI
Hosted Yes Yes + Self Self-hosted Yes
Config YAML YAML Groovy/YAML YAML
Marketplace 20k+ Actions Templates 1800+ Plugins Orbs
Container Native Yes Yes (DinD) Via plugins Yes
Free Tier 2000 min/mo 400 min/mo Free (self) 6000 min/mo
Matrix Builds Yes Yes (parallel) Yes Yes
Secrets Mgmt Encrypted Variables + Vault Credentials Contexts

Usage Tips

  1. Use the comparison charts first to narrow your tooling choices before diving into individual tool pages.
  2. Copy the starter configs — each tool page includes a production-ready starter configuration you can adapt.
  3. Follow the integration patterns — the pack shows how tools connect (e.g., GitHub Actions → Terraform → ArgoCD).
  4. Check the "Gotchas" sections — every tool page lists common mistakes and how to avoid them.
  5. Start with the GitOps workflow diagram if you're designing a new deployment pipeline from scratch.

This is 1 of 11 resources in the Cheatsheet Reference Pro toolkit. Get the complete [DevOps Tooling Reference] with all files, templates, and documentation for $19.

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