External Configuration Server – Backlog Plan¶

Introduction¶

This document outlines the backlog planning cycles for the External Configuration Server (ECS) project. The ECS is designed as a cloud-native, distributed configuration management system that enables microservices and applications to consume dynamic configuration in a secure, resilient, and observable way.

The plan is structured into 20 development cycles, each representing a cohesive scope of work. Every cycle contains:

Epic(s): High-level business or technical capability to be delivered.
Features: Functional components of the epic, broken into concrete areas.
Tasks: Actionable items required for implementation.
Acceptance Criteria: Clear validation goals to ensure readiness and completeness.

The backlog is designed to evolve iteratively, starting with core foundations (API, storage, discovery) and moving toward advanced capabilities (multi-tenancy, governance, FinOps, AI-driven enhancements, and innovation roadmap).

This plan provides a strategic view for engineering and product teams, aligning ECS development with enterprise readiness, compliance, scalability, and long-term innovation.

ECS Core Service¶

⚙️ Purpose: The foundational components of ECS, including configuration APIs, schema management, versioning, and high availability. These cycles focus on building the core runtime engine that manages configurations securely and reliably.

Epic: ECS-Core-001 – Core Service Foundations¶

Description: Implement the foundational components of the External Configuration Server (ECS). This epic covers the service runtime, configuration storage, and essential CRUD APIs to manage configuration items. It establishes the baseline for all future functionality.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS service runs as a standalone microservice with defined endpoints.
Configuration data can be created, read, updated, and deleted via APIs.
Basic metadata (id, name, type, version, created/updated timestamps) is supported.
Service is deployable locally and in a containerized environment.

Feature: ECS-Core-API-001 – Configuration CRUD API¶

Description: Provide a REST API for managing configuration entities. Supports standard CRUD operations with request/response validation.

Acceptance Criteria:

Endpoints: POST /configs, GET /configs/{id}, PUT /configs/{id}, DELETE /configs/{id}.
Requests are validated against schema.
Responses include metadata and payload.
Errors follow a consistent error model.

Tasks:

ECS-Core-API-T001 – Define OpenAPI Specification
- Create OpenAPI 3.0 spec covering CRUD operations.
- Ensure request/response schemas align with PRD.
- ✅ Acceptance: Spec published and validated by API linter.
ECS-Core-API-T002 – Implement REST Endpoints
- Build CRUD endpoints in ECS service.
- ✅ Acceptance: Endpoints functional with unit tests (80% coverage).
ECS-Core-API-T003 – Add Validation & Error Handling
- Schema validation for requests.
- Consistent error model (errorCode, message, traceId).
- ✅ Acceptance: Invalid requests return 400 with error model.

Feature: ECS-Core-VER-001 – Configuration Versioning¶

Description: Enable version control for configuration items to ensure traceability and rollback.

Acceptance Criteria:

Each update creates a new version with immutable data.
Support GET /configs/{id}/versions and GET /configs/{id}/versions/{version}.
Rollback supported via POST /configs/{id}/rollback.

Tasks:

ECS-Core-VER-T001 – Define Version Metadata Model
- Fields: versionNumber, createdAt, createdBy, changeSummary.
- ✅ Acceptance: Model defined and documented.
ECS-Core-VER-T002 – Implement Version Storage
- Persist versions in DB with history tracking.
- ✅ Acceptance: Updating config stores new version automatically.
ECS-Core-VER-T003 – Implement Rollback API
- Provide rollback to any previous version.
- ✅ Acceptance: rollback API tested and functional.

Feature: ECS-Core-META-001 – Metadata & Tagging¶

Description: Support metadata and tagging for configurations to enable organization, search, and filtering.

Acceptance Criteria:

Tags can be added to any configuration.
API supports filtering by tags.
Metadata includes system fields (created, updated, owner).

Tasks:

ECS-Core-META-T001 – Extend Data Model for Tags
- Add tags array to configuration schema.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config object includes tags property.
ECS-Core-META-T002 – Implement Filtering by Tags
- Add query parameter GET /configs?tags=....
- ✅ Acceptance: Returns only matching configurations.
ECS-Core-META-T003 – Add Ownership Metadata
- Store ownerId and ownerName.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config includes ownership fields.

Feature: ECS-Core-DB-001 – Persistence Layer¶

Description: Define and implement persistence layer for configuration storage with support for relational DB.

Acceptance Criteria:

Schema supports configs, versions, metadata, tags.
NHibernate ORM mappings defined.
Unit tests confirm persistence correctness.

Tasks:

ECS-Core-DB-T001 – Define Database Schema
- Tables: Configs, ConfigVersions, ConfigTags.
- ✅ Acceptance: Schema script created and reviewed.
ECS-Core-DB-T002 – Implement ORM Mappings
- Use NHibernate with mappings for entities.
- ✅ Acceptance: CRUD operations persist correctly.
ECS-Core-DB-T003 – Implement Repository Pattern
- Abstract persistence with repository interface.
- ✅ Acceptance: Repositories tested with integration tests.

Client SDKs & Integration¶

🔌 Purpose: Enable external systems and applications to easily consume ECS. This section covers multi-language SDKs, integration adapters, and compatibility with existing platforms.

Epic: ECS-SDK-001 – Client SDKs & Integration¶

Description: Deliver official SDKs and integration helpers for client applications to consume ECS seamlessly. Includes .NET and JavaScript SDKs, REST client helpers, packaging, and publishing to registries.

Acceptance Criteria:

SDKs provide typed models and easy-to-use APIs.
Supports both polling and push mechanisms.
Distributed via NuGet (for .NET) and npm (for JavaScript).
Includes documentation and usage samples.

Feature: ECS-SDK-NET-001 – .NET SDK¶

Description: Provide a .NET client SDK for consuming ECS configurations. Supports async APIs, version fetching, and caching.

Acceptance Criteria:

NuGet package published.
Typed classes align with ECS API schema.
Supports GetConfig, GetConfigVersion, SubscribeToConfigChanges.

Tasks:

ECS-SDK-NET-T001 – Define Client API Surface
- Interfaces: IConfigurationClient.
- ✅ Acceptance: Public API design reviewed and approved.
ECS-SDK-NET-T002 – Implement HTTP Client Wrapper
- Uses HttpClientFactory with DI.
- ✅ Acceptance: Fetches configs via REST APIs.
ECS-SDK-NET-T003 – Implement Local Caching Layer
- Memory cache for configs with TTL.
- ✅ Acceptance: Prevents redundant API calls.
ECS-SDK-NET-T004 – Package & Publish to NuGet
- Automate publish via pipeline.
- ✅ Acceptance: NuGet package available in feed.

Feature: ECS-SDK-JS-001 – JavaScript SDK¶

Description: Provide a JavaScript/TypeScript SDK for consuming ECS in web apps and Node.js services.

Acceptance Criteria:

npm package published.
Supports both ESM and CommonJS.
Provides TypeScript types.

Tasks:

ECS-SDK-JS-T001 – Define API Contracts
- Define TS interfaces for configs, versions, metadata.
- ✅ Acceptance: Types documented and exported.
ECS-SDK-JS-T002 – Implement REST Client
- Axios/Fetch wrapper with retries.
- ✅ Acceptance: Tested with live ECS API.
ECS-SDK-JS-T003 – Add EventEmitter for Push Updates
- Allow clients to subscribe to change events.
- ✅ Acceptance: Push notifications trigger callbacks.
ECS-SDK-JS-T004 – Package & Publish to npm
- Setup CI workflow for publishing.
- ✅ Acceptance: npm package installable and usable.

Feature: ECS-SDK-COM-001 – REST Client Helpers¶

Description: Provide reusable REST client libraries and CLI for integration without full SDKs.

Acceptance Criteria:

Simple REST client in multiple languages (curl, PowerShell examples).
CLI tool supports ecs get-config, ecs list-configs, ecs subscribe.

Tasks:

ECS-SDK-COM-T001 – Create REST Client Snippets
- Examples in cURL, PowerShell, Python.
- ✅ Acceptance: Included in docs.
ECS-SDK-COM-T002 – Implement CLI Tool
- Node.js CLI with Commander.js.
- ✅ Acceptance: CLI installed via npm global.
ECS-SDK-COM-T003 – Add Auth Support to CLI
- Support API key and OAuth2.
- ✅ Acceptance: CLI authenticates successfully.

Feature: ECS-SDK-DOC-001 – SDK Documentation & Samples¶

Description: Provide documentation, tutorials, and sample applications for SDK usage.

Acceptance Criteria:

Samples for .NET and JS show fetching configs, handling updates, caching.
Markdown docs hosted in repo + published in MkDocs.
Quickstart guides included.

Tasks:

ECS-SDK-DOC-T001 – Write SDK Usage Guides
- “Getting Started” for .NET and JS.
- ✅ Acceptance: Docs reviewed and merged.
ECS-SDK-DOC-T002 – Create Sample Applications
- Console app (.NET), Web app (React/JS).
- ✅ Acceptance: Samples run successfully.
ECS-SDK-DOC-T003 – Publish Docs to Portal
- MkDocs pipeline integration.
- ✅ Acceptance: Docs visible in ECS documentation site.

Configuration Delivery¶

📦 Purpose: Deliver configuration changes to clients quickly and safely. Provides both push (event‑driven) and pull (polling/long‑polling) paths, plus point‑in‑time snapshots for cold starts and recovery; emphasizes at‑least‑once delivery, idempotency, ordering per config, backoff/retries, ETag-based cache validation, and deduplication.

Epic: ECS-DEL-001 – Configuration Delivery & Distribution¶

Description: Provide reliable mechanisms to deliver configurations from ECS to client applications. Supports push (event-driven), pull (polling), and snapshot delivery patterns to balance consistency, latency, and scalability.

Acceptance Criteria:

Clients can subscribe to push notifications for changes.
Polling fallback available for clients that don’t support push.
Config snapshots are available for bulk fetch and recovery.
Delivery mechanisms handle retries, idempotency, and ordering.

Feature: ECS-DEL-PUSH-001 – Push Notifications¶

Description: Enable ECS to proactively notify clients of configuration changes via messaging systems (Azure Service Bus, Kafka, NATS, etc.).

Acceptance Criteria:

Events emitted on config creation/update/delete.
At-least-once delivery guaranteed.
Events include config ID, version, and metadata reference.

Tasks:

ECS-DEL-PUSH-T001 – Define Event Schema
- JSON schema: {eventType, configId, version, timestamp, traceId}.
- ✅ Acceptance: Schema documented and versioned.
ECS-DEL-PUSH-T002 – Implement Event Publisher
- Publish changes to Service Bus/Kafka topics.
- ✅ Acceptance: Events delivered to subscribed consumers.
ECS-DEL-PUSH-T003 – Implement Subscriber Example
- Sample .NET/JS client consuming events.
- ✅ Acceptance: Client receives and logs config change events.

Feature: ECS-DEL-POLL-001 – Polling & Long-Polling¶

Description: Support clients that prefer/require polling for changes instead of push.

Acceptance Criteria:

Endpoint GET /configs/{id}/watch?sinceVersion=X returns new versions.
Supports ETag/If-None-Match headers.
Long-polling reduces unnecessary traffic.

Tasks:

ECS-DEL-POLL-T001 – Implement Polling Endpoint
- Provide /watch endpoint with incremental updates.
- ✅ Acceptance: Client receives updates after version X.
ECS-DEL-POLL-T002 – Add ETag Support
- Return ETag headers in responses.
- ✅ Acceptance: Clients can use conditional requests.
ECS-DEL-POLL-T003 – Implement Long-Poll Option
- Hold connection until new version available (timeout configurable).
- ✅ Acceptance: Long-poll works with multiple clients simultaneously.

Feature: ECS-DEL-SNAP-001 – Snapshot Delivery¶

Description: Allow clients to fetch a complete snapshot of all configurations at a given time. Useful for cold start and recovery.

Acceptance Criteria:

Endpoint GET /configs/snapshot returns full dataset.
Supports point-in-time snapshots with version ID.
Snapshots can be compressed for efficiency.

Tasks:

ECS-DEL-SNAP-T001 – Implement Snapshot Endpoint
- Returns JSON array of configs with versions.
- ✅ Acceptance: Clients fetch snapshot successfully.
ECS-DEL-SNAP-T002 – Add Versioned Snapshot Support
- Optional ?atVersion=X parameter.
- ✅ Acceptance: Returns consistent dataset at version X.
ECS-DEL-SNAP-T003 – Implement Snapshot Compression
- Support gzip/deflate encoding.
- ✅ Acceptance: Compressed response reduces size >50%.

Feature: ECS-DEL-REL-001 – Reliability & Idempotency¶

Description: Ensure delivery mechanisms are reliable, fault-tolerant, and idempotent.

Acceptance Criteria:

Duplicate events do not break clients (idempotency keys).
Retries with exponential backoff are supported.
Ordering guarantees provided where applicable.

Tasks:

ECS-DEL-REL-T001 – Add Idempotency Key to Events
- Include semanticHash or eventId in event schema.
- ✅ Acceptance: Clients ignore duplicates gracefully.
ECS-DEL-REL-T002 – Implement Retry with Backoff
- Exponential backoff for failed deliveries.
- ✅ Acceptance: Retries logged and successful in tests.
ECS-DEL-REL-T003 – Ensure Event Ordering
- Maintain order per config ID.
- ✅ Acceptance: Ordering validated in integration tests.

Security & Access Control¶

🔐 Purpose: Ensure ECS is secure by design. Covers authentication, role-based access control (RBAC), secrets handling, and zero-trust alignment.

Epic: ECS-SEC-001 – Security Layer¶

Description: Implement a robust security layer for the External Configuration Server (ECS). This covers authentication, role-based access control (RBAC), and secret storage to ensure only authorized clients and users can access or modify configurations.

Acceptance Criteria:

All ECS APIs are protected by authentication.
RBAC governs access to read/write/delete operations.
Sensitive data (secrets, connection strings, credentials) is securely stored and never exposed in plain text.
Security integrates with enterprise identity systems (Azure AD, OAuth2).

Feature: ECS-SEC-AUTH-001 – Authentication¶

Description: Introduce authentication mechanisms for ECS APIs, supporting both OAuth2 (Azure AD) and API key–based authentication for service-to-service communication.

Acceptance Criteria:

Azure AD integration supports OAuth2 client credentials flow.
API key authentication supported for lightweight clients.
Authentication failures return standardized 401 Unauthorized errors.

Tasks:

ECS-SEC-AUTH-T001 – Integrate Azure AD Authentication
- Configure ECS APIs to validate OAuth2 tokens from Azure AD.
- ✅ Acceptance: Authenticated requests with valid tokens succeed, invalid ones fail.
ECS-SEC-AUTH-T002 – Implement API Key Support
- Support API key header (x-api-key) for authentication.
- ✅ Acceptance: Requests with valid API key succeed.
ECS-SEC-AUTH-T003 – Add Auth Middleware
- Middleware validates tokens or API keys on all requests.
- ✅ Acceptance: Middleware blocks unauthenticated requests by default.

Feature: ECS-SEC-RBAC-001 – Role-Based Access Control¶

Description: Introduce RBAC to restrict access to ECS resources based on roles (Admin, Editor, Reader, Service).

Acceptance Criteria:

Roles and permissions are centrally defined.
Admins can manage all configs; Editors can update; Readers can view; Services can subscribe.
Unauthorized access attempts return 403 Forbidden.

Tasks:

ECS-SEC-RBAC-T001 – Define Roles & Permissions Model
- Define roles (Admin, Editor, Reader, Service) with capabilities.
- ✅ Acceptance: Model documented and reviewed.
ECS-SEC-RBAC-T002 – Implement Permission Enforcement
- Check permissions before executing API actions.
- ✅ Acceptance: Attempted unauthorized actions blocked with 403 Forbidden.
ECS-SEC-RBAC-T003 – Add Role Management API
- Endpoints to assign/revoke roles to users or service accounts.
- ✅ Acceptance: Roles can be updated via API by admins.

Feature: ECS-SEC-SEC-001 – Secret Storage¶

Description: Provide secure storage and access for sensitive configuration values (secrets, credentials, API keys). Integrates with Azure Key Vault and allows references instead of storing raw secrets.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS never stores secrets in plaintext.
Secrets are stored in Azure Key Vault or equivalent provider.
Configs may include a reference token (e.g., kv://my-secret).

Tasks:

ECS-SEC-SEC-T001 – Integrate Azure Key Vault
- Support fetching and storing secrets in Key Vault.
- ✅ Acceptance: Secrets retrieved securely at runtime.
ECS-SEC-SEC-T002 – Add Secret Reference Support
- Allow configs to contain kv:// URIs instead of values.
- ✅ Acceptance: SDK resolves secret references automatically.
ECS-SEC-SEC-T003 – Audit Secret Access
- Log secret fetch events with traceId.
- ✅ Acceptance: Secret access events visible in audit logs.

Observability & Monitoring¶

📊 Purpose: Provide deep visibility into ECS operations. Includes logging, tracing, metrics, health checks, and integration with monitoring platforms like Grafana/Prometheus.

Epic: ECS-OBS-001 – Diagnostics¶

Description: Provide comprehensive observability for the External Configuration Server (ECS). This includes structured logging, distributed tracing, system metrics, and health checks to enable proactive monitoring and quick troubleshooting.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS emits structured logs with correlation IDs.
Distributed tracing captures end-to-end request flows.
Metrics are exposed for resource usage, request latency, and error rates.
Health checks report ECS readiness and liveness.
Dashboards and alerts provide actionable insights for operators.

Feature: ECS-OBS-LOG-001 – Logging¶

Description: Implement structured and centralized logging for ECS.

Acceptance Criteria:

Logs include timestamp, traceId, spanId, log level, and context.
Logging pipeline integrates with Serilog + OpenTelemetry exporters.
Sensitive data (e.g., secrets) is never logged.

Tasks:

ECS-OBS-LOG-T001 – Configure Structured Logging
- Use Serilog with JSON format.
- ✅ Acceptance: Logs structured and machine-parsable.
ECS-OBS-LOG-T002 – Add Correlation IDs
- Include traceId in each log line.
- ✅ Acceptance: Log entries linkable across services.
ECS-OBS-LOG-T003 – Integrate with Central Sink
- Export logs to Elastic/Log Analytics.
- ✅ Acceptance: Logs queryable in central platform.

Feature: ECS-OBS-TRC-001 – Distributed Tracing¶

Description: Capture distributed traces for ECS requests and events.

Acceptance Criteria:

OpenTelemetry instrumentation for all ECS APIs.
Traces include spans for DB, cache, and messaging operations.
Traces exportable to Jaeger, Zipkin, or Azure Monitor.

Tasks:

ECS-OBS-TRC-T001 – Add OpenTelemetry Tracing
- Instrument ECS APIs and SDK clients.
- ✅ Acceptance: Traces appear in tracing backend.
ECS-OBS-TRC-T002 – Add Context Propagation
- Propagate trace context across services/events.
- ✅ Acceptance: End-to-end request traceable across systems.
ECS-OBS-TRC-T003 – Configure Exporters
- Support exporters for Jaeger/Zipkin/Azure Monitor.
- ✅ Acceptance: Operators can select exporter at runtime.

Feature: ECS-OBS-MET-001 – Metrics¶

Description: Expose ECS metrics for performance, reliability, and usage monitoring.

Acceptance Criteria:

Metrics exposed at /metrics (Prometheus format).
Includes request count, error rate, latency, resource usage.
Custom metrics for config delivery (push, poll, snapshot).

Tasks:

ECS-OBS-MET-T001 – Define Metrics Schema
- Document required system and custom metrics.
- ✅ Acceptance: Metrics catalog approved.
ECS-OBS-MET-T002 – Implement Metrics Collection
- Integrate OpenTelemetry metrics SDK.
- ✅ Acceptance: Metrics collected in ECS runtime.
ECS-OBS-MET-T003 – Expose Metrics Endpoint
- /metrics endpoint returns Prometheus format.
- ✅ Acceptance: Scrapeable by Prometheus.

Feature: ECS-OBS-HC-001 – Health Checks¶

Description: Expose readiness and liveness probes for ECS to ensure operational health.

Acceptance Criteria:

/health/live for liveness.
/health/ready for readiness.
Checks cover DB, cache, messaging, and external dependencies.

Tasks:

ECS-OBS-HC-T001 – Implement Liveness Probe
- Returns 200 if ECS process is alive.
- ✅ Acceptance: Kubernetes restarts ECS if probe fails.
ECS-OBS-HC-T002 – Implement Readiness Probe
- Verifies ECS dependencies (DB, bus).
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS marked ready only when dependencies healthy.
ECS-OBS-HC-T003 – Add Health Check UI
- Provide /health/ui with detailed results.
- ✅ Acceptance: Operators can view health dashboard.

Feature: ECS-OBS-OPS-001 – Dashboards & Alerts¶

Description: Provide Grafana dashboards and alerting rules for ECS monitoring.

Acceptance Criteria:

Dashboards show latency, error rate, throughput, resource utilization.
Alerts trigger on SLA breaches (e.g., >5% error rate, latency >1s).
Alerts integrate with email/Slack/Teams.

Tasks:

ECS-OBS-OPS-T001 – Build Grafana Dashboards
- Create standard dashboard panels for ECS metrics.
- ✅ Acceptance: Dashboards available for operators.
ECS-OBS-OPS-T002 – Define Alert Rules
- SLA-based alert thresholds documented.
- ✅ Acceptance: Alerts trigger in Prometheus/Alertmanager.
ECS-OBS-OPS-T003 – Integrate Alerts with Channels
- Configure email/Slack/Teams connectors.
- ✅ Acceptance: Alerts delivered to on-call team.

Resilience & Failover¶

🔄 Purpose: Guarantee reliability in the face of failures. Covers retry policies, circuit breakers, chaos testing, and automated failover strategies.

Epic: ECS-RES-001 – Fault Tolerance¶

Description: Ensure the External Configuration Server (ECS) remains resilient and available under failure conditions. Introduce fault-tolerant design patterns such as fallback caching, retry logic, circuit breakers, and chaos testing. Implement a failover plan to guarantee business continuity.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS continues serving configs even during transient outages.
Local fallback cache enables clients to operate without central service temporarily.
Retry strategies with exponential backoff prevent overload.
Chaos testing validates system resilience under stress.
Failover plan documented and validated in staging environments.

Feature: ECS-RES-CACHE-001 – Local Fallback Cache¶

Description: Provide a fallback caching mechanism for ECS clients and services, ensuring they can continue functioning during temporary ECS downtime.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS SDKs cache last known valid configs locally.
Fallback cache includes TTL and version tracking.
Clients automatically switch to ECS when service recovers.

Tasks:

ECS-RES-CACHE-T001 – Implement Local Cache in SDKs
- Use in-memory + optional disk persistence for last known configs.
- ✅ Acceptance: SDK fetches from cache when ECS unreachable.
ECS-RES-CACHE-T002 – Add TTL & Expiry Policies
- Configs expire after defined TTL to prevent stale data.
- ✅ Acceptance: Expired cache triggers warning/error.
ECS-RES-CACHE-T003 – Recovery Sync Mechanism
- Sync latest configs once ECS is back online.
- ✅ Acceptance: Cached data replaced with fresh ECS data automatically.

Feature: ECS-RES-RET-001 – Retry Strategies¶

Description: Introduce retry logic for ECS operations to handle transient failures gracefully.

Acceptance Criteria:

Retries follow exponential backoff with jitter.
Maximum retry limit prevents infinite loops.
Retry attempts logged for observability.

Tasks:

ECS-RES-RET-T001 – Implement Exponential Backoff
- Add retry policy to ECS SDK clients.
- ✅ Acceptance: Failed requests retried per policy.
ECS-RES-RET-T002 – Add Jitter to Retries
- Randomize retry intervals to avoid thundering herd.
- ✅ Acceptance: Concurrent clients retry at different times.
ECS-RES-RET-T003 – Integrate Circuit Breaker Pattern
- Open circuit after repeated failures, auto-reset after cool-down.
- ✅ Acceptance: Circuit breaker prevents excessive retries.

Feature: ECS-RES-CHAOS-001 – Chaos Testing¶

Description: Validate ECS resilience under adverse conditions using chaos engineering experiments.

Acceptance Criteria:

Chaos scenarios simulate ECS downtime, latency spikes, and dependency failures.
System remains stable within SLA thresholds.
Results documented and improvements applied.

Tasks:

ECS-RES-CHAOS-T001 – Define Chaos Scenarios
- Scenarios: ECS offline, DB down, high latency, dropped events.
- ✅ Acceptance: Scenarios documented and approved.
ECS-RES-CHAOS-T002 – Implement Chaos Tests in Staging
- Use tools (e.g., Chaos Mesh, Azure Chaos Studio).
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS remains stable within defined thresholds.
ECS-RES-CHAOS-T003 – Document Learnings & Fixes
- Capture resilience gaps and remediation steps.
- ✅ Acceptance: Postmortem report produced for each chaos run.

Feature: ECS-RES-FAIL-001 – Failover Plan¶

Description: Define and validate a structured failover plan for ECS to ensure continuity during severe outages.

Acceptance Criteria:

Failover architecture documented (active-passive or active-active).
Runbook includes failover steps and recovery procedures.
Failover tested in staging and verified by operators.

Tasks:

ECS-RES-FAIL-T001 – Define Failover Architecture
- Choose active-active or active-passive design.
- ✅ Acceptance: Architecture diagram reviewed and approved.
ECS-RES-FAIL-T002 – Implement Failover Automation
- Scripts for DNS switch or cluster promotion.
- ✅ Acceptance: Failover executed automatically in test.
ECS-RES-FAIL-T003 – Create Failover Runbook
- Document operator steps for manual failover.
- ✅ Acceptance: Runbook tested in a failover simulation.

Deployment & CI/CD¶

🚀 Purpose: Streamline ECS deployment and lifecycle automation. Includes Helm charts, infrastructure as code (Bicep/Terraform/Pulumi), pipelines, and migration/versioning automation.

Epic: ECS-DEP-001 – Automation¶

Description: Automate deployment and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) for the External Configuration Server (ECS). Provide infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates, pipelines, and automation to ensure reproducible, reliable, and versioned deployments across environments.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS deployable via Helm, Bicep, Terraform, or Pulumi.
CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps automate build, test, and deploy.
Versioning and migration automation included.
Deployments reproducible across dev, staging, and production.

Feature: ECS-DEP-HELM-001 – Helm Charts¶

Description: Package ECS microservice as a Helm chart for Kubernetes deployment.

Acceptance Criteria:

Helm chart supports configurable parameters (replicas, image, secrets).
Values files for dev, staging, prod.
Chart tested with helm install and helm upgrade.

Tasks:

ECS-DEP-HELM-T001 – Create Base Helm Chart
- Define Deployment, Service, Ingress templates.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS deploys via helm install.
ECS-DEP-HELM-T002 – Add Values Files per Environment
- values-dev.yaml, values-staging.yaml, values-prod.yaml.
- ✅ Acceptance: Each environment deploys with environment-specific overrides.
ECS-DEP-HELM-T003 – Test Helm Upgrade Path
- Validate zero-downtime rolling updates.
- ✅ Acceptance: helm upgrade succeeds without downtime.

Feature: ECS-DEP-IAC-001 – Infrastructure as Code (Bicep/Terraform/Pulumi)¶

Description: Provide infrastructure definitions to deploy ECS in Azure and Kubernetes using Bicep, Terraform, or Pulumi.

Acceptance Criteria:

IaC templates provision ECS infrastructure (AKS, Service Bus, Key Vault, DB).
Parameterized for reusability across environments.
Templates validated with automated linting.

Tasks:

ECS-DEP-IAC-T001 – Create Bicep Templates
- Define AKS cluster, Service Bus, Key Vault, DB.
- ✅ Acceptance: Resources provisioned successfully via Bicep.
ECS-DEP-IAC-T002 – Create Terraform Modules
- Equivalent Terraform modules for multi-cloud portability.
- ✅ Acceptance: Terraform plan/apply provisions same resources.
ECS-DEP-IAC-T003 – Implement Pulumi Deployment
- Pulumi (TypeScript/.NET) scripts for developers preferring code-driven IaC.
- ✅ Acceptance: Pulumi deploys ECS successfully in test subscription.

Feature: ECS-DEP-CICD-001 – Pipelines (GitHub Actions & Azure DevOps)¶

Description: Define CI/CD pipelines for ECS builds, tests, containerization, and deployments.

Acceptance Criteria:

GitHub Actions workflows available for OSS projects.
Azure DevOps pipelines available for enterprise use.
Pipelines include build, test, security scan, and deployment stages.

Tasks:

ECS-DEP-CICD-T001 – Define CI Templates
- Build & test templates with caching and parallelization.
- ✅ Acceptance: Pipelines run unit/integration tests automatically.
ECS-DEP-CICD-T002 – Implement CD Pipelines
- Deploy ECS to dev/staging/prod using IaC + Helm.
- ✅ Acceptance: Pipelines complete with approval gates.
ECS-DEP-CICD-T003 – Add Security & Quality Gates
- Integrate code scanning, dependency checks, coverage thresholds.
- ✅ Acceptance: Builds fail if quality/security thresholds unmet.

Feature: ECS-DEP-VER-001 – Versioning & Migration Automation¶

Description: Implement automated versioning, schema migrations, and release workflows for ECS.

Acceptance Criteria:

Semantic versioning enforced for releases.
Automated DB migrations during deployments.
Release notes auto-generated from commits.

Tasks:

ECS-DEP-VER-T001 – Implement Semantic Versioning
- Git tags and pipeline tasks enforce MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.
- ✅ Acceptance: Releases follow semver automatically.
ECS-DEP-VER-T002 – Add Database Migration Automation
- Run EF/NHibernate migrations during deployments.
- ✅ Acceptance: DB schema upgrades applied automatically with rollback support.
ECS-DEP-VER-T003 – Generate Release Notes
- Pipeline step to generate changelog from commit messages.
- ✅ Acceptance: Release notes published with each release.

Advanced Features¶

🧩 Purpose: Extend ECS with pluggable capabilities. Includes feature flags, AI-driven config assistants, and Semantic Kernel integration.

Epic: ECS-ADV-001 – Extensions¶

Description: Extend the External Configuration Server (ECS) with advanced capabilities that enhance flexibility, intelligence, and adaptability. Enable dynamic feature management, AI-assisted configuration, and integration with emerging technologies to improve developer productivity and system resilience.

Acceptance Criteria:

Feature flags supported natively for toggling features per environment/tenant.
Semantic Kernel integration enables AI-assisted reasoning and orchestration.
AI-based assistant can provide intelligent recommendations for configuration.
Pluggable connectors/providers allow easy extensibility.

Feature: ECS-ADV-FLG-001 – Feature Flags¶

Description: Introduce feature flag support to toggle ECS and application features dynamically without redeployment.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS stores and serves feature flag definitions.
Flags can be environment, tenant, or user scoped.
SDK and API provide flag evaluation logic.

Tasks:

ECS-ADV-FLG-T001 – Implement Feature Flag Data Model
- Define schema for flags (key, type, conditions, default value).
- ✅ Acceptance: DB/API supports CRUD operations for feature flags.
ECS-ADV-FLG-T002 – Add Feature Flag Evaluation SDK
- Client SDK exposes IsFeatureEnabled(key, context).
- ✅ Acceptance: SDK returns correct flag status based on context.
ECS-ADV-FLG-T003 – Build Management API & UI
- Expose endpoints and admin UI to toggle flags.
- ✅ Acceptance: Admin can enable/disable flags in real time.

Feature: ECS-ADV-SK-001 – Semantic Kernel Integration¶

Description: Integrate Microsoft Semantic Kernel (SK) to orchestrate AI-driven reasoning, rules evaluation, and natural language queries against configuration.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS can delegate reasoning tasks to Semantic Kernel plugins.
Config queries supported in natural language.
Pluggable AI connectors available (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI).

Tasks:

ECS-ADV-SK-T001 – Implement SK Connectors
- Develop SK connector for ECS configuration store.
- ✅ Acceptance: SK can retrieve and reason about configs.
ECS-ADV-SK-T002 – Build AI Providers Integration
- Add OpenAI/Azure OpenAI as default providers.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config assistant works with multiple providers.
ECS-ADV-SK-T003 – Add Config Reasoning Rules Engine
- Rules engine interprets AI responses into actionable ECS operations.
- ✅ Acceptance: Rules engine maps AI output into valid config changes.

Feature: ECS-ADV-AIA-001 – AI-Based Config Assistant¶

Description: Provide an intelligent assistant that recommends and explains configuration changes using AI and semantic search.

Acceptance Criteria:

AI assistant suggests optimal config values based on history, patterns, and policies.
Supports interactive queries from CLI, UI, or API.
Provides reasoning/explanation with recommendations.

Tasks:

ECS-ADV-AIA-T001 – Build AI Config Query Interface
- Natural language queries like “What’s the current timeout setting in staging?”
- ✅ Acceptance: Assistant responds with accurate config details.
ECS-ADV-AIA-T002 – Implement Recommendation Engine
- AI suggests new configs based on telemetry/usage.
- ✅ Acceptance: Recommendations improve system stability/performance.
ECS-ADV-AIA-T003 – Add Explainability Layer
- Assistant explains why a config is recommended.
- ✅ Acceptance: Each suggestion includes rationale.

Enterprise Readiness¶

🏢 Purpose: Prepare ECS for large-scale enterprise adoption. Focuses on multi-tenancy, federation across clusters, namespace partitioning, and organizational boundaries. Ensures the system can support multiple business units securely and efficiently, with isolation, scalability, and governance baked in.

Epic: ECS-ENT-001 – Multi-Tenancy & Federation¶

Description: Enable the External Configuration Server (ECS) to operate in enterprise-grade environments with support for multiple tenants, isolated namespaces, and federated clusters. This ensures scalability, data security, and seamless collaboration across organizations and geographies.

Acceptance Criteria:

Each tenant has isolated configuration data and access policies.
Federation across ECS clusters allows global consistency with local autonomy.
Partitioning and namespace management supported at scale.
Administrative APIs and UIs enable tenant lifecycle management.

Feature: ECS-ENT-TNT-001 – Tenant Isolation¶

Description: Introduce strict logical isolation between tenants to ensure security and prevent data leakage.

Acceptance Criteria:

Config data segmented per tenant.
Access policies scoped to tenant identity.
Cross-tenant queries are blocked by default.

Tasks:

ECS-ENT-TNT-T001 – Implement Tenant-Aware Data Model
- Extend schema with TenantId and enforce uniqueness.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config items stored with tenant scoping.
ECS-ENT-TNT-T002 – Tenant-Aware Authentication & Authorization
- Map users/roles to tenant-specific contexts.
- ✅ Acceptance: User sees only configs of their tenant.
ECS-ENT-TNT-T003 – Build Tenant Management API
- CRUD endpoints for tenants and quotas.
- ✅ Acceptance: Admin can create, update, and delete tenants.

Feature: ECS-ENT-FED-001 – Federation Across Clusters¶

Description: Support federation across ECS clusters in multiple regions or organizations, enabling shared or synchronized configurations.

Acceptance Criteria:

Config sync supported between clusters.
Clusters can share specific namespaces across federation.
Conflict resolution strategy implemented.

Tasks:

ECS-ENT-FED-T001 – Federation Protocol Implementation
- Define APIs and event-driven mechanisms for inter-cluster sync.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config changes in one cluster propagate to peers.
ECS-ENT-FED-T002 – Namespace Replication Policies
- Support selective namespace sharing across clusters.
- ✅ Acceptance: Admin can choose which namespaces to federate.
ECS-ENT-FED-T003 – Conflict Resolution Engine
- Implement last-write-wins or custom resolution strategy.
- ✅ Acceptance: Conflicts auto-resolved or flagged.

Feature: ECS-ENT-NSP-001 – Partitioning & Namespace Management¶

Description: Provide flexible partitioning and namespace mechanisms for large-scale tenants and federated setups.

Acceptance Criteria:

Namespaces allow grouping configs logically.
Partitioning improves performance and scalability.
Namespace-level RBAC supported.

Tasks:

ECS-ENT-NSP-T001 – Implement Namespaces in Data Model
- Add hierarchical namespace support (e.g., org/project/env).
- ✅ Acceptance: Configs retrievable via namespace filter.
ECS-ENT-NSP-T002 – Namespace Lifecycle API
- CRUD operations for namespaces with quota enforcement.
- ✅ Acceptance: Admin can create, update, delete namespaces.
ECS-ENT-NSP-T003 – Namespace-Level RBAC
- Assign roles and permissions per namespace.
- ✅ Acceptance: User access scoped to authorized namespaces only.

Developer Enablement¶

👩‍💻 Purpose: Improve the developer experience when working with ECS. Covers API documentation, SDK samples, diagrams-as-code, and tooling that simplify onboarding and daily use. Ensures that developers can quickly integrate ECS into their workflows with clear guidance, automation, and best practices.

Epic: ECS-DEV-001 – Documentation & Developer Experience¶

Description: Provide comprehensive documentation, examples, and visual diagrams to empower developers, operators, and enterprise adopters of the External Configuration Server (ECS). Improve usability, onboarding, and long-term maintainability by offering clear guidance, tutorials, and visualizations.

Acceptance Criteria:

All APIs documented with OpenAPI/Swagger.
Samples available in multiple languages/frameworks.
Architecture diagrams generated and maintained as code.
Developer portal/tutorials simplify onboarding.

Feature: ECS-DEV-DOC-001 – API Documentation¶

Description: Generate and publish complete API reference documentation for ECS REST/gRPC endpoints.

Acceptance Criteria:

API documented using Swagger/OpenAPI and gRPC reflection.
Documentation includes request/response schemas, error codes, and examples.
Available in developer portal and auto-updated with releases.

Tasks:

ECS-DEV-DOC-T001 – Swagger/OpenAPI Generation
- Integrate Swagger UI into ECS service.
- ✅ Acceptance: REST endpoints visible in Swagger UI.
ECS-DEV-DOC-T002 – gRPC Proto Documentation
- Generate proto reference docs.
- ✅ Acceptance: gRPC methods documented with request/response contracts.
ECS-DEV-DOC-T003 – Publish API Documentation
- Host API docs on developer portal or static site.
- ✅ Acceptance: Users can access live API docs externally.

Feature: ECS-DEV-SMP-001 – Samples & Tutorials¶

Description: Provide SDK samples, quick-starts, and tutorials for multiple programming languages.

Acceptance Criteria:

Quick-start guides available for .NET, JavaScript, and REST clients.
Samples include configuration retrieval, update, and watch mechanisms.
Tutorials tested and validated in CI.

Tasks:

ECS-DEV-SMP-T001 – .NET Quick-Start Sample
- Example app consuming ECS SDK.
- ✅ Acceptance: Developer can run sample and fetch configs.
ECS-DEV-SMP-T002 – JavaScript Quick-Start Sample
- Example Node.js/Browser client.
- ✅ Acceptance: Developer can run JS app and fetch configs.
ECS-DEV-SMP-T003 – REST API Tutorial
- cURL/Postman collection with endpoints.
- ✅ Acceptance: User can execute calls and replicate tutorial steps.
ECS-DEV-SMP-T004 – CI Validation of Samples
- Pipeline to build and run samples for regression prevention.
- ✅ Acceptance: Samples always validated in CI/CD.

Feature: ECS-DEV-DIA-001 – Diagrams-as-Code¶

Description: Introduce diagrams-as-code for ECS architecture, deployment, and configuration flows.

Acceptance Criteria:

Diagrams written in Mermaid, PlantUML, or Structurizr DSL.
Source-controlled and versioned with code.
Auto-generated visualizations included in docs.

Tasks:

ECS-DEV-DIA-T001 – Architecture Diagrams
- ECS service architecture visualized with Mermaid/PlantUML.
- ✅ Acceptance: High-level system architecture diagram included in docs.
ECS-DEV-DIA-T002 – Deployment Topology Diagrams
- Kubernetes/Cloud topology diagrams generated.
- ✅ Acceptance: Ops team can visualize ECS deployment structure.
ECS-DEV-DIA-T003 – Configuration Flow Diagrams
- Sequence diagrams for configuration retrieval and updates.
- ✅ Acceptance: Docs include visual flow diagrams.

Performance & Scalability¶

⚡ Purpose: Validate ECS performance and responsiveness at scale. Includes benchmarking, horizontal scaling, caching optimization, and latency validation to ensure predictable behavior under peak workloads.

Epic: ECS-PERF-001 – High Performance¶

Description: Ensure the External Configuration Server (ECS) can handle large-scale workloads with low latency and high throughput. Introduce load testing, caching strategies, and horizontal scaling policies to guarantee reliability during peak demand.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS sustains 10x expected peak load under benchmark tests.
Horizontal scaling policies auto-trigger and stabilize under stress.
Cache hit ratio ≥ 90% for frequent config requests.
Latency for config retrieval ≤ 50ms p95 under load.

Feature: ECS-PERF-LDT-001 – Load Testing Framework¶

Description: Introduce automated benchmarking for ECS APIs to validate performance across core scenarios.

Acceptance Criteria:

Load tests simulate config retrieval, updates, and subscriptions.
CI/CD pipelines execute benchmarks in regression cycles.
Performance reports generated and reviewed automatically.

Tasks:

ECS-PERF-LDT-T001 – JMeter/Gatling Benchmarks
- Define test plans for high-throughput config retrieval.
- ✅ Acceptance: Load test results available per build cycle.
ECS-PERF-LDT-T002 – CI/CD Integration
- Automate execution of load tests in pipelines.
- ✅ Acceptance: Fail pipeline if latency > 50ms p95.

Feature: ECS-PERF-SCL-001 – Horizontal Scaling¶

Description: Enable ECS to scale dynamically across distributed environments based on system demand.

Acceptance Criteria:

Kubernetes HPA/VPA policies configured and tested.
Cluster scales based on CPU, memory, and request latency.
Scale-out and scale-in observed in production simulation.

Tasks:

ECS-PERF-SCL-T001 – Implement Autoscaling Policies
- Define scaling thresholds in Kubernetes (CPU/memory/latency).
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS pods scale automatically under load.
ECS-PERF-SCL-T002 – Stress Test Autoscaling
- Run tests to validate scale-out and recovery behavior.
- ✅ Acceptance: Scaling stabilizes within 5 minutes of load spike.

Feature: ECS-PERF-CCH-001 – Caching Optimization¶

Description: Introduce distributed and in-memory caching strategies to minimize latency on frequent configuration requests.

Acceptance Criteria:

Cache hit ratio ≥ 90% under benchmark scenarios.
In-memory caching optimized for SDK-side hot paths.
Redis distributed cache validated in multi-instance deployments.

Tasks:

ECS-PERF-CCH-T001 – Redis Distributed Cache
- Add Redis-based caching for config retrieval.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS reduces DB queries by ≥ 80%.
ECS-PERF-CCH-T002 – In-Memory Hot Path Caching
- Add per-node in-memory cache for critical queries.
- ✅ Acceptance: p95 latency < 50ms for cached requests.

Data Storage & Persistence¶

💾 Purpose: Provide reliable, scalable, and auditable storage for ECS configurations. Includes database schema design, migrations, versioning, backups, and disaster recovery planning to ensure long-term integrity and business continuity.

Epic: ECS-STR-001 – Configuration Storage¶

Description: Design and implement a robust storage layer for ECS that supports multi-tenancy, versioned configuration histories, schema migrations, and resilience against failures.

Acceptance Criteria:

Schema supports versioned, immutable configuration storage with audit trail.
Query performance ≤ 100ms p95 latency for frequent config lookups.
Automated schema migrations run in CI/CD with rollback support.
Backups validated monthly; RPO ≤ 15 minutes, RTO ≤ 1 hour.
Disaster recovery playbooks tested and documented.

Feature: ECS-STR-SCH-001 – Database Schema Design¶

Description: Define relational schema optimized for configuration storage, retrieval, and versioning across tenants and namespaces.

Acceptance Criteria:

Schema normalized for key/value + metadata + history.
Supports tenant/namespace isolation.
Indexed for high-frequency reads.

Tasks:

ECS-STR-SCH-T001 – Relational Schema Design
- Define tables for configs, metadata, and versions.
- ✅ Acceptance: Schema reviewed and approved in design doc.
ECS-STR-SCH-T002 – Indexing & Partitioning Strategy
- Add indexes for hot paths; partition by tenant/namespace.
- ✅ Acceptance: Queries return < 100ms p95 latency.

Feature: ECS-STR-MIG-001 – Schema Migrations¶

Description: Implement safe and repeatable database migration workflows.

Acceptance Criteria:

CI/CD pipelines apply migrations automatically.
Rollback supported for all schema changes.
Migration tests validated in staging.

Tasks:

ECS-STR-MIG-T001 – EF Core/NHibernate Migrations
- Create initial migration set with rollback support.
- ✅ Acceptance: CI/CD applies schema migrations successfully.
ECS-STR-MIG-T002 – Migration Testing Framework
- Validate migrations in staging environments.
- ✅ Acceptance: Staging tests pass with both upgrades and rollbacks.

Feature: ECS-STR-BKP-001 – Backup & Restore Strategy¶

Description: Establish reliable backup/restore routines for data safety and compliance.

Acceptance Criteria:

Full backups + incremental snapshots scheduled.
Restore process tested monthly.
Backups encrypted and verified.

Tasks:

ECS-STR-BKP-T001 – Automated Backups
- Configure daily full backups and incremental snapshots.
- ✅ Acceptance: Backup jobs succeed with alerts on failure.
ECS-STR-BKP-T002 – Restore Testing
- Simulate monthly restores in staging.
- ✅ Acceptance: Restores complete under RTO ≤ 1 hr.

Feature: ECS-STR-VRS-001 – Versioned Configurations¶

Description: Enable immutable version tracking of all configuration changes.

Acceptance Criteria:

Each update creates a new version with timestamp + author.
API allows rollback and retrieval of version history.
Version metadata stored for audit.

Tasks:

ECS-STR-VRS-T001 – Versioning Logic
- Store new immutable version on update.
- ✅ Acceptance: API returns historical configs on request.

Feature: ECS-STR-DRP-001 – Disaster Recovery Plan¶

Description: Develop disaster recovery playbooks and validate SLAs for business continuity.

Acceptance Criteria:

RPO ≤ 15 minutes, RTO ≤ 1 hour.
DR tests simulated quarterly.
Documented procedures published to runbook.

Tasks:

ECS-STR-DRP-T001 – Define RPO/RTO Targets
- Establish recovery objectives and validate through drills.
- ✅ Acceptance: DR simulation completes within SLA.

Service Mesh & Networking¶

🌐 Purpose: Ensure secure, reliable, and flexible connectivity between ECS services and clients. Covers service discovery, API gateway integration, traffic routing, and gRPC-Web bridging to provide observability, resiliency, and multi-tenant aware networking.

Epic: ECS-NET-001 – Connectivity¶

Description: Introduce a service mesh and networking layer that provides secure inter-service communication, centralized traffic control, and client integration support. Leverage Envoy/Istio and API gateways to enforce policies, observability, and controlled rollouts.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS services automatically discoverable across staging and production.
All inter-service communication secured with mTLS.
API gateway enforces authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and logging.
Traffic routing supports blue/green, canary, and tenant-aware routing.
Browser clients connect successfully via gRPC-Web.

Feature: ECS-NET-SDS-001 – Service Discovery¶

Description: Enable dynamic discovery of ECS services across environments using a service mesh.

Acceptance Criteria:

Services register automatically in Istio/Envoy mesh.
DNS-based discovery resolves ECS endpoints across clusters.

Tasks:

ECS-NET-SDS-T001 – Mesh-Based Discovery
- Deploy ECS inside Istio/Envoy.
- ✅ Acceptance: Services automatically discoverable in staging/prod.
ECS-NET-SDS-T002 – Mutual TLS (mTLS)
- Enable mTLS for encrypted intra-service traffic.
- ✅ Acceptance: All inter-service traffic encrypted and verified.

Feature: ECS-NET-GTW-001 – API Gateway Integration¶

Description: Introduce a centralized API gateway to enforce security, traffic control, and logging for external access.

Acceptance Criteria:

Gateway enforces authentication, rate limits, and request quotas.
Metrics and logs collected at gateway layer.

Tasks:

ECS-NET-GTW-T001 – Ingress/Egress Policies
- Configure ingress via Azure API Management/Kong/Ambassador.
- ✅ Acceptance: External requests validated and routed via gateway.
ECS-NET-GTW-T002 – Centralized Logging & Metrics
- Expose metrics and request logs at gateway.
- ✅ Acceptance: Metrics integrated with monitoring dashboards.

Feature: ECS-NET-TRF-001 – Traffic Routing Policies¶

Description: Define routing strategies to support rollouts, resiliency, and tenant-aware traffic segmentation.

Acceptance Criteria:

Canary and blue/green supported.
Retry/circuit breaker policies enforced.
Namespace-aware routing isolates tenant traffic.

Tasks:

ECS-NET-TRF-T001 – Routing & Traffic Splitting
- Define policies for canary, blue/green, and % rollouts.
- ✅ Acceptance: Canary deployment verified in staging.
ECS-NET-TRF-T002 – Namespace-Aware Routing
- Route requests based on tenant/namespace headers.
- ✅ Acceptance: Tenant traffic isolated correctly in mesh.

Feature: ECS-NET-GRP-001 – gRPC-Web Bridging¶

Description: Allow browser-based clients to connect to ECS via gRPC-Web using Envoy as a proxy.

Acceptance Criteria:

gRPC-Web works with ECS browser SDKs and Postman.
Envoy proxy correctly translates gRPC-Web → gRPC.

Tasks:

ECS-NET-GRP-T001 – Envoy gRPC-Web Proxy
- Deploy Envoy as translator for browser gRPC requests.
- ✅ Acceptance: Browser clients fetch configs successfully over gRPC-Web.

Platform Integrations¶

🔌 Purpose: Extend ECS with ecosystem provider integrations. Covers support for cloud-native backends (Azure, AWS, GCP) and HashiCorp Consul/Vault for secrets. Also enables hybrid multi-backend mode with cross-provider consistency.

Epic: ECS-INT-001 – Ecosystem Support¶

Description: Enable ECS to integrate seamlessly with leading cloud and enterprise platforms for configuration and secret management. Provide adapters for Azure, AWS, GCP, and HashiCorp tools while ensuring hybrid interoperability.

Acceptance Criteria:

ECS supports Azure App Config, Consul, Vault, AWS Parameter Store, and GCP Secret Manager.
CRUD, versioning, and watch/refresh supported across providers.
Hybrid mode enables multi-provider sync without corruption.
Secret rotation events propagate within <60s SLA.
Interoperability test suite green in CI/CD.

Feature: ECS-INT-AZC-001 – Azure App Configuration Provider¶

Description: Provide a first-class integration with Azure App Configuration, including feature flags and refresh triggers.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-AZC-T001 – Azure App Config Adapter
- Implement provider for reading/writing configs.
- ✅ Acceptance: Configs retrieved and updated via Azure App Config.
ECS-INT-AZC-T002 – Refresh & Feature Flag Sync
- Support auto-refresh and feature flag sync.
- ✅ Acceptance: Feature flags update in ECS within seconds.

Feature: ECS-INT-CNS-001 – HashiCorp Consul Backend¶

Description: Integrate ECS with Consul KV store for configuration storage.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-CNS-T001 – Consul KV Provider
- Add provider to fetch/store configs in Consul.
- ✅ Acceptance: Config CRUD works with Consul KV.
ECS-INT-CNS-T002 – Watch & Health-Check
- Ensure ECS watches Consul changes.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS syncs automatically when Consul changes.

Feature: ECS-INT-CNS-002 – HashiCorp Vault Backend¶

Description: Support Vault as a secure secrets backend with lease/token handling.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-CNS-T003 – Vault Provider
- Implement secret storage/rotation.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS fetches/rotates secrets with Vault tokens.
ECS-INT-CNS-T004 – Vault Authentication
- Support AppRole, JWT, and Kubernetes auth.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS authenticates securely with Vault.

Feature: ECS-INT-AWS-001 – AWS Parameter Store¶

Description: Integrate ECS with AWS Parameter Store for parameterized configs.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-AWS-T001 – AWS Parameter Store Adapter
- Provide CRUD and versioning support.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS can create/read/update/delete parameters.
ECS-INT-AWS-T002 – IAM Authentication
- Use IAM roles for access control.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS authenticates with IAM securely.

Feature: ECS-INT-GCP-001 – GCP Secret Manager¶

Description: Add ECS provider for GCP Secret Manager with IAM-based access policies.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-GCP-T001 – GCP Secret Manager Adapter
- Support secret read/write with versioning.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS reads/writes secrets to GCP SM.
ECS-INT-GCP-T002 – Google Service Account Auth
- Authenticate using GCP service accounts.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS integrates securely with GCP IAM.

Feature: ECS-INT-HYB-001 – Hybrid Multi-Backend Setup¶

Description: Allow ECS to connect to multiple providers simultaneously and resolve conflicts.

Tasks:

ECS-INT-HYB-T001 – Multi-Provider Sync
- Enable ECS to fetch configs from multiple providers.
- Implement conflict resolution (priority-based, last-write-wins).
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS handles hybrid setups without corruption.
ECS-INT-HYB-T002 – Interoperability Test Suite
- Add CI/CD suite for cross-provider validation.
- ✅ Acceptance: Tests confirm consistent results across providers.

Governance & Compliance¶

🛡️ Purpose: Ensure ECS meets enterprise governance, auditability, and compliance standards. Covers immutable logs, GDPR/SOC2 enforcement, policy validation, and reporting to satisfy security and regulatory requirements.

Epic: ECS-GOV-001 – Policy Enforcement¶

Description: Provide governance and compliance capabilities for ECS, ensuring that every configuration change is traceable, policies are enforceable, and organizations can meet auditing and regulatory obligations.

Acceptance Criteria:

All configuration changes logged immutably with metadata.
Policies validated pre-deployment in CI/CD.
GDPR/SOC2 rules enforced consistently.
Compliance dashboards and exportable reports available.
Alerts raised automatically on violations.

Feature: ECS-GOV-AUD-001 – Audit Trails¶

Description: Introduce append-only, tamper-evident logs for all configuration changes.

Tasks:

ECS-GOV-AUD-T001 – Immutable Logs
- Store config changes in an append-only event store.
- Include metadata (user, timestamp, IP, reason).
- ✅ Acceptance: Logs cryptographically signed and tamper-evident.

Feature: ECS-GOV-CPL-001 – GDPR/SOC2 Compliance Checks¶

Description: Define and enforce compliance rules covering data retention, encryption, and PII handling.

Tasks:

ECS-GOV-CPL-T001 – Compliance Rules Engine
- Implement GDPR/SOC2 checks for data retention and encryption.
- Build automated enforcement for PII masking.
- ✅ Acceptance: Configs validated against compliance rules before deployment.

Feature: ECS-GOV-POL-001 – Config Policy Validation¶

Description: Prevent misconfigurations by enforcing schema-based validation and sensitive-data checks.

Tasks:

ECS-GOV-POL-T001 – Sensitive Config Validation
- Disallow plaintext secrets in configs.
- Validate configs against schema rules before deployment.
- Integrate policy validation as a CI/CD gate.
- ✅ Acceptance: CI/CD pipeline blocks invalid configs.

Feature: ECS-GOV-RPT-001 – Compliance Reporting¶

Description: Provide dashboards, exportable reports, and automated alerts for compliance status.

Tasks:

ECS-GOV-RPT-T001 – Compliance Dashboards & Reports
- Build UI dashboards showing compliance status.
- Enable export to PDF/Excel for auditors.
- Automate monthly reports for stakeholders.
- ✅ Acceptance: Reports generated/exported successfully.
ECS-GOV-RPT-T002 – Policy Violation Alerts
- Trigger alerts on compliance violations.
- Integrate with Slack/Teams and PagerDuty.
- ✅ Acceptance: Alerts received in Ops channels.

Cost Optimization & FinOps¶

💰 Purpose: Ensure ECS operates with financial efficiency and transparency. Focuses on resource utilization tracking, budget alerts, FinOps dashboards, and optimization policies to minimize waste while enabling predictable scaling.

Epic: ECS-CST-001 – Efficiency¶

Description: Introduce cost awareness and FinOps practices into ECS. Provide visibility into resource utilization, align consumption with budgets, and implement proactive alerts and reports for engineering and finance teams.

Acceptance Criteria:

Resource utilization tracked and attributed to tenants/namespaces.
ECS integrates with Azure Cost Management APIs for billing visibility.
Budget alerts triggered at thresholds (≥80% of cap).
Monthly optimization reports generated and validated by Ops.
Autoscaling cost policies prevent >20% unplanned overages.

Feature: ECS-CST-UTL-001 – Resource Utilization Tracking¶

Description: Monitor ECS resource consumption (CPU, memory, storage, network) and expose metrics for observability and cost attribution.

Tasks:

ECS-CST-UTL-T001 – Resource Utilization Metrics
- Collect CPU, memory, storage, and network usage across ECS services.
- Expose metrics via Prometheus/OpenTelemetry.
- ✅ Acceptance: Metrics available in Grafana dashboards.
ECS-CST-UTL-T002 – Cost Attribution per Tenant/Namespace
- Track consumption at tenant/namespace level.
- Provide cost breakdown per environment/project.
- ✅ Acceptance: Tenant-level usage reports available.

Feature: ECS-CST-POL-001 – Scaling Cost Policies¶

Description: Define scaling cost guardrails to avoid runaway expenses from uncontrolled scaling.

Tasks:

ECS-CST-POL-T001 – Autoscaling Cost Policies
- Define autoscaling thresholds based on both performance and cost metrics.
- Enforce limits to prevent runaway scaling.
- ✅ Acceptance: Scaling respects defined budget and resource policies.

Feature: ECS-CST-BDG-001 – Budget Management & Alerts¶

Description: Integrate ECS with budget monitoring systems and provide proactive alerting when spend thresholds are reached.

Tasks:

ECS-CST-BDG-T001 – Azure Cost Management Integration
- Connect ECS with Azure Cost Management APIs.
- Retrieve real-time spend data and align with billing.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS dashboards show up-to-date spend.
ECS-CST-BDG-T002 – Budget Alerts
- Define budget caps per project/tenant.
- Send alerts via email/Slack/Teams at ≥80% budget utilization.
- ✅ Acceptance: Alerts received by Finance/Ops teams.

Feature: ECS-CST-ANA-001 – Usage Analytics & Reporting¶

Description: Provide deep FinOps insights and optimization recommendations for ECS usage.

Tasks:

ECS-CST-ANA-T001 – Monthly Optimization Reports
- Generate reports with cost trends, anomalies, and savings opportunities.
- Distribute to finance and engineering teams.
- ✅ Acceptance: Reports generated monthly and reviewed in Ops meetings.
ECS-CST-ANA-T002 – FinOps Dashboard
- Build real-time dashboard with spend forecasts, tenant breakdown, and optimization tips.
- ✅ Acceptance: Finance team uses dashboard for cost governance.

Migration & Legacy Support¶

🔄 Purpose: Enable organizations to adopt ECS without disruption by providing migration tooling, backward compatibility, and clear playbooks. Ensures smooth transition from legacy configuration systems with minimal client changes and validated rollback procedures.

Epic: ECS-MIG-001 – Adoption Enablement¶

Description: Provide migration paths and legacy system support to accelerate ECS adoption. Deliver tooling for import/export, backward-compatible APIs, phased migration strategies, and playbooks for repeatable execution.

Acceptance Criteria:

Configs import/export seamlessly across JSON, YAML, XML, and INI.
Legacy clients supported via backward-compatible APIs with <10% code changes.
Connectors for at least 2 widely used legacy systems operational.
Migration playbook published and peer-reviewed.
Rollback procedures validated in staging environments.

Feature: ECS-MIG-IMP-001 – Import/Export Tools¶

Description: Provide tooling to ingest and export configurations between ECS and legacy systems for smooth interoperability and fallback.

Tasks:

ECS-MIG-IMP-T001 – ETL Pipelines for Legacy Configs
- Build pipelines to transform and load configs from legacy stores (files, DBs, services).
- Support JSON, YAML, XML, INI input formats.
- ✅ Acceptance: Imported configs visible in ECS without errors.
ECS-MIG-IMP-T002 – Export Functionality
- Provide tooling to export ECS configs into legacy formats for fallback.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS configs exported and usable in legacy systems.

Feature: ECS-MIG-LGC-001 – Legacy System Connectors¶

Description: Provide adapters for common legacy systems to ease phased coexistence and minimize disruption during cutover.

Tasks:

ECS-MIG-LGC-T001 – Backward-Compatible APIs
- Expose REST endpoints mimicking legacy systems.
- Ensure minimal client code changes (<10%).
- ✅ Acceptance: Legacy clients consume ECS with unchanged workflows.
ECS-MIG-LGC-T002 – Build Legacy Connectors
- Integrate with systems like ZooKeeper, Spring Config Server.
- ✅ Acceptance: ECS coexists with at least 2 legacy providers in hybrid mode.

Feature: ECS-MIG-STR-001 – Gradual Migration Strategies¶

Description: Support progressive rollout with dual-write and feature toggle mechanisms to minimize migration risk.

Tasks:

ECS-MIG-STR-T001 – Define Migration Strategies
- Support dual-write (legacy + ECS) until cutover.
- Provide feature toggles for staged rollout.
- ✅ Acceptance: Teams migrate with controlled risk, validated in staging.

Feature: ECS-MIG-DOC-001 – Migration Documentation & Playbooks¶

Description: Deliver clear migration guides and playbooks to ensure repeatability and reduce adoption risks.

Tasks:

ECS-MIG-DOC-T001 – Migration Playbooks
- Document step-by-step migration process.
- Include rollback procedures and risk mitigations.
- ✅ Acceptance: Playbook published, peer-reviewed, and tested.
ECS-MIG-DOC-T002 – Sample Migration Scenarios
- Provide example migrations from popular legacy systems.
- Publish best practices to avoid pitfalls.
- ✅ Acceptance: Teams can follow scenarios to replicate migrations.

User Experience & UI Portal¶

🎛️ Purpose: Provide a unified, intuitive, and secure portal for admins and users to manage configurations, monitor system health, and receive alerts. Ensures a modern, role-based, and accessible UI with real-time dashboards, reporting, and notifications.

Epic: ECS-UX-001 – Management UX¶

Description: Deliver a web-based management experience that allows administrators and operators to view, edit, monitor, and audit configurations. Support real-time insights, reporting, notifications, and global accessibility.

Acceptance Criteria:

Portal accessible with secure login, SSO, and MFA.
Admins and users can view, edit, and rollback configurations with full audit trail.
Real-time dashboards display config push status, latency, and service health metrics.
Reports and analytics exportable in CSV, PDF, and Excel formats.
Notifications and alerts available both in-portal and via external channels (Slack/Teams/email).
UI supports multiple languages and meets WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards.

Feature: ECS-UX-PRT-001 – Web-Based Admin Portal¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-PRT-T001 – Build React/Blazor Portal for Admins
- Develop responsive web UI using React or Blazor.
- Integrate with API gateway and ECS backend services.
- ✅ Acceptance: Portal loads in <2s on modern browsers and mobile.
ECS-UX-PRT-T002 – Implement Secure Login & SSO
- Support OAuth2/OpenID Connect with Azure AD or external IdPs.
- Provide optional MFA for high-privilege accounts.
- ✅ Acceptance: Successful login flows verified with IdPs and MFA.

Feature: ECS-UX-SSU-001 – Self-Service Configuration UI¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-SSU-T001 – Implement RBAC-Based UI Access
- Enforce role-based visibility and edit permissions.
- Map UI to backend RBAC enforcement.
- ✅ Acceptance: Users restricted to permitted namespaces/configs.
ECS-UX-SSU-T002 – Provide Configuration Editing & Version Rollback
- Support inline editing, diff views, and rollback.
- Track all user changes with full audit logs.
- ✅ Acceptance: Rollbacks validated and tracked in immutable logs.

Feature: ECS-UX-DSB-001 – Real-Time Dashboards¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-DSB-T001 – Add Live Monitoring Widgets
- Show config push status, error rates, and latency metrics.
- Add tenant/environment filters.
- ✅ Acceptance: Dashboard refresh ≤ 5s with accurate metrics.
ECS-UX-DSB-T002 – Build Health & Performance Dashboards
- Show ECS service health, cache hit rates, API latency.
- Integrate with Prometheus/Grafana.
- ✅ Acceptance: Ops team can view consolidated metrics via portal.

Feature: ECS-UX-RPT-001 – Reporting & Analytics¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-RPT-T001 – Develop Reporting UI
- Build query builder for usage reports.
- Export to CSV, PDF, Excel.
- ✅ Acceptance: Users can download reports on demand.
ECS-UX-RPT-T002 – Implement Usage Analytics View
- Show most-accessed configs, tenant activity, and historical trends.
- ✅ Acceptance: Reports show trends with ≤5% variance vs raw data.

Feature: ECS-UX-NOT-001 – Notifications & Alerts Center¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-NOT-T001 – Add Notifications & Alerts Center
- Provide UI for alerts (policy violations, errors, cost thresholds).
- Integrate with Slack, Teams, email.
- ✅ Acceptance: Alerts visible in-portal and external channels within 60s.
ECS-UX-NOT-T002 – Support Custom User Alerts
- Allow users to define thresholds (e.g., push failure >5).
- ✅ Acceptance: Custom alerts fire correctly based on user rules.

Feature: ECS-UX-LOC-001 – Localization & Accessibility¶

Tasks:

ECS-UX-LOC-T001 – Add Localization Support
- Provide translations for core UI.
- Support right-to-left (RTL) languages.
- ✅ Acceptance: UI available in at least 3 languages at launch.
ECS-UX-LOC-T002 – Implement Accessibility Features (WCAG 2.1)
- Add keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and high-contrast themes.
- ✅ Acceptance: Portal passes WCAG 2.1 AA compliance checks.

Knowledge Base & Training¶

📘 Purpose: Enable developers, operators, and stakeholders to learn, adopt, and master ECS through structured workshops, training paths, certification, and practical sandbox environments. Ensure knowledge is documented, accessible, and continuously improved.

Epic: ECS-KNW-001 – Learning Enablement¶

Description: Deliver a comprehensive knowledge and training ecosystem for ECS that includes workshops, operator guides, training certifications, sandbox labs, and video-based learning. Provide both self-service learning and interactive sessions to accelerate adoption.

Acceptance Criteria:

Knowledge base is indexed, searchable, and continuously updated.
Video tutorials cover all major ECS features with practical step-by-step demos.
Operator guides provide repeatable playbooks for deployment, monitoring, and scaling.
Training path with certification/badging available for developers and operators.
Sandbox environments enable safe, hands-on experimentation without production risk.
Feedback from workshops and webinars directly drives updates to the knowledge base.

Feature: ECS-KNW-WKS-001 – Developer Workshops¶

Tasks:

ECS-KNW-WKS-T001 – Organize Developer Workshops
- Run live workshops covering SDK usage, integration patterns, and real-world case studies.
- Provide lab exercises with guided coding challenges.
- ✅ Acceptance: At least 3 recurring workshop series available per quarter with >80% positive feedback.

Feature: ECS-KNW-GDE-001 – Operator Guides¶

Tasks:

ECS-KNW-GDE-T001 – Write Operator Guides
- Author operational playbooks covering deployment, monitoring, scaling, backup/restore, and disaster recovery.
- Align content with governance, compliance, and security requirements.
- ✅ Acceptance: Guides peer-reviewed, published, and accessible via internal portal.

Feature: ECS-KNW-TRN-001 – Training & Certification Path¶

Tasks:

ECS-KNW-TRN-T001 – Define Training & Certification Path
- Create structured training levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Expert).
- Provide digital badges/certificates upon completion.
- ✅ Acceptance: Certification platform integrated with LMS; badges downloadable and shareable (LinkedIn, resumes).

Feature: ECS-KNW-VID-001 – Video Tutorials & Webinars¶

Tasks:

ECS-KNW-VID-T001 – Publish Video Tutorials
- Record tutorials for ECS features (e.g., config editing, version rollback, RBAC, dashboards).
- Host content on internal LMS or public channels (Teams/YouTube).
- ✅ Acceptance: Videos cover 90%+ of major workflows.
ECS-KNW-VID-T002 – Conduct Webinars & Q\&A Sessions
- Host live webinars for operators and developers.
- Collect and feed back Q\&A insights into docs and KB articles.
- ✅ Acceptance: At least 1 webinar/month with active Q\&A and follow-up documentation.

Feature: ECS-KNW-SBX-001 – Sandbox Environments¶

Tasks:

ECS-KNW-SBX-T001 – Provide Sandbox Training Environments
- Deploy isolated ECS environments in Azure for training.
- Pre-load sample configurations for safe experimentation.
- Reset environments nightly to maintain clean state.
- ✅ Acceptance: Learners can run labs without affecting production.
ECS-KNW-SBX-T002 – Add Guided Walkthroughs in Sandbox
- Provide step-by-step onboarding flows and interactive hints.
- Track learner progress across labs.
- ✅ Acceptance: Learners complete guided flows with <10% abandonment rate.

Innovation & Future Roadmap¶

🚀 Purpose: Ensure ECS evolves with next-gen capabilities, preparing for edge computing, zero-trust security, post-quantum cryptography, AI-driven intelligence, and multi-cloud synchronization. Drive continuous innovation with exploratory PoCs and technology benchmarking.

Epic: ECS-FTU-001 – Next-Gen Capabilities¶

Description: Enable ECS to remain future-ready by experimenting with and adopting emerging technologies. Establish edge distribution for IoT/remote sites, integrate zero-trust architectures, test post-quantum cryptography, and explore AI-driven optimization and multi-cloud smart sync.

Acceptance Criteria:

Edge distribution tested in lab environments, supporting offline-first and low-bandwidth sync.
Zero-trust workload identity validated via SPIFFE/SPIRE integration.
PQC (post-quantum cryptography) algorithms benchmarked and compared with RSA/ECC under ECS load.
Research prototypes for AI-driven optimization and multi-cloud sync documented and peer-reviewed.
Clear roadmap decisions recorded for inclusion in future ECS releases.

Feature: ECS-FTU-EDG-001 – Edge Configuration Distribution¶

Tasks:

ECS-FTU-EDG-T001 – PoC for Edge Caching (IoT/Remote Sites)
- Deploy lightweight ECS agents on constrained/remote devices.
- Sync configs periodically with the central ECS server.
- Enable offline-first local caching for resilience.
- ✅ Acceptance: Agents tested in lab with successful offline failover.
ECS-FTU-EDG-T002 – Benchmark Edge Performance
- Measure latency, reliability, and sync success in low-bandwidth conditions.
- Validate config propagation in intermittent connectivity scenarios.
- ✅ Acceptance: Benchmarks published and validated against SLA targets.

Feature: ECS-FTU-ZTR-001 – Zero-Trust Integration¶

Tasks:

ECS-FTU-ZTR-T001 – Integrate SPIFFE/SPIRE for Workload Identity
- Replace static service credentials with dynamic workload identities.
- Validate trust federation across ECS clusters.
- ✅ Acceptance: Workloads authenticated without static secrets.
ECS-FTU-ZTR-T002 – Zero-Trust Policy Enforcement
- Apply per-request authentication and authorization at service mesh layer.
- Audit tenant/service-level policy enforcement.
- ✅ Acceptance: Policies enforced with 100% request coverage in tests.

Feature: ECS-FTU-QSC-001 – Quantum-Safe Cryptography¶

Tasks:

ECS-FTU-QSC-T001 – Experiment with PQC Algorithms
- Evaluate NIST-approved PQC algorithms for key exchange and signatures.
- Prototype integration into ECS encryption and secret management.
- ✅ Acceptance: PQC algorithms successfully integrated in test workflows.
ECS-FTU-QSC-T002 – Benchmark PQC Algorithms for Performance
- Compare PQC vs RSA/ECC in terms of latency, CPU, and memory overhead.
- Document trade-offs and resource impacts.
- ✅ Acceptance: Benchmarks published and validated by security team.

Feature: ECS-FTU-AIN-001 – AI-Driven Config Optimization (Future Exploration)¶

Tasks:

ECS-FTU-AIN-T001 – Research AI-Driven Config Optimization
- Explore ML/AI for anomaly detection and automated tuning.
- Prototype predictive scaling and self-healing configuration policies.
- ✅ Acceptance: Initial PoC results published, with lessons learned logged.

Feature: ECS-FTU-MLT-001 – Multi-Cloud Smart Sync (Future Exploration)¶

Tasks:

ECS-FTU-MLT-T001 – Investigate Multi-Cloud Smart Sync
- Research cross-cloud config replication across Azure, AWS, and GCP.
- Assess failover and consistency strategies for hybrid/multi-cloud setups.
- ✅ Acceptance: Design document produced with feasibility analysis.