{"slug":"sota-cloud-infrastructure","title":"sota-cloud-infrastructure","summary":"State-of-the-art cloud infrastructure architecture (2026). Applies when designing, building, or auditing cloud environments on AWS, GCP, or Azure — account/project structure and landing zones, IAM and workload identity, VPC/network design, DNS/TLS/CDN, compute selection (serverle","platform":"Claude","tags":[],"authorName":"LLM Mart","authorSlug":"llm-mart","score":0,"source":"github","price":null,"verified":false,"createdAt":"2026-09-09T18:38:45.393413Z","repo":{"url":"https://github.com/martinholovsky/SOTA-skills","stars":23,"forks":3,"license":"CC-BY-4.0","updatedAt":"2026-09-19T18:57:02Z"},"bodyHtml":"
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name: sota-cloud-infrastructure\ndescription: >-\nState-of-the-art cloud infrastructure architecture (2026). Applies when designing, building, or auditing cloud environments on AWS, GCP, or Azure — account/project structure and landing zones, IAM and workload identity, VPC/network design, DNS/TLS/CDN, compute selection (serverless vs containers vs Kubernetes vs VMs), object storage and backup architecture, cost engineering (FinOps), and disaster recovery. Trigger keywords: cloud, AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, EKS, GKE, AKS, VPC, subnet, IAM, role, service account, serverless, Lambda, Cloud Run, Fargate, Terraform architecture, DNS, CDN, load balancer, FinOps, cost, rightsizing, disaster recovery, RTO, RPO, multi-region. Use for BOTH greenfield design and auditing existing infrastructure.

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SOTA Cloud Infrastructure

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Purpose

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This skill encodes the 2026 state of the art for cloud infrastructure architecture:\norganizational structure, identity, networking, compute selection, data placement,\ncost, and resilience. Every rule exists to prevent a real failure class — blast-radius\nspread, credential theft, public data exposure, egress bill shock, unmeetable RTOs,\nor a Kubernetes cluster nobody needed.

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Boundaries with sibling skills — reference, do not duplicate:

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This skill owns: what accounts/networks/identities/compute/storage exist, how they\nconnect, what they cost, and how they survive failure.

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BUILD mode

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Use when designing or extending cloud infrastructure (architecture docs, Terraform\nmodules, landing zones, network plans, DR plans).

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  1. Establish context before proposing anything: provider(s), org maturity (single\naccount vs landing zone), environment count, data sensitivity, RTO/RPO targets,\nmonthly spend ballpark, team size. A 3-person startup and a regulated enterprise\nget different answers from the same rules.
    2. \n
  2. Read the matching rules files from the index below BEFORE writing config. Compute\nselection (rules/04) comes before networking details; account structure (rules/01)\ncomes before everything.
    3. \n
  3. Default to the boring, managed, restrictive option: managed services over\nself-hosted, private over public, multi-AZ over single-AZ, deny-by-default IAM and\nnetwork policy. Every loosening gets a written justification in a comment.
    4. \n
  4. Every resource you design must carry: owner tag, environment tag, cost-allocation\ntag, and a deletion/lifecycle story. Untagged infrastructure is unaccountable\ninfrastructure.
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  5. State the cost and the failure mode of what you propose. \"Three NAT gateways at\nper-hour + per-GB rates\" and \"this is single-region; region loss means restore\nfrom backup\" belong in the design, not in the postmortem.
    6. \n
  6. Produce infrastructure as code (Terraform/OpenTofu/Pulumi fragments), never\nconsole-click instructions, except for one-time org bootstrap steps which must be\ndocumented as such.
    7. \n
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AUDIT mode

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Use when reviewing existing cloud environments, Terraform repos, or architecture docs.

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Process: inventory what exists (accounts/projects, networks, identities, compute,\nstorage, DNS); walk the Audit checklist at the end of each relevant rules file;\nreport findings in the format below. Confirm exploitability/reality before reporting —\nread the actual policy JSON or Terraform, don't infer from resource names.

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Severity conventions

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SeverityMeaningExamples
CriticalExternal party can read/modify data or assume identity nowPublic S3/GCS bucket with sensitive data; IAM role assumable by * or any OIDC subject; security group 0.0.0.0/0 on a database port; root/owner account without MFA; cross-account trust to an unknown account
HighOne credential or insider step from compromise, or guaranteed outage classLong-lived IAM user keys for humans or CI; wildcard Action:* on broad resources; single-AZ stateful workload with no tested backup; no SCPs/org policies on a multi-account org; flat network with no egress control; unencrypted snapshots shared externally
MediumWeakens containment, recovery, or cost controlShared account for prod and non-prod; no permission boundaries on delegated admins; backups in same account/region as source; no cost allocation tags; NAT for traffic that should use private endpoints; cert renewal manual
LowHygiene, drift, headroomInconsistent tagging; unused elastic IPs/disks; default VPC still present; missing IPv6 plan; quota headroom unmonitored
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Severity is judged by reachability (anonymous > authenticated external > tenant > insider)\n× impact (data/identity compromise > availability > cost). Cost-only findings cap at\nHigh (sustained material burn) and are usually Medium.

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Finding format

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[SEVERITY] <short title>\nWhere: <account/project> / <resource or Terraform address> / <file:line if IaC>\nEvidence: <the exact policy statement / CIDR / config proving it>\nImpact: <who can do what, or what fails and how>\nFix: <specific change — policy JSON / Terraform diff / architecture move>\n
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Group repeated instances of the same finding (e.g., 40 buckets without lifecycle\nrules) into one finding with a count and a listing.

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Rules index

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FileRead this when...
rules/01-org-accounts-governance.mdSetting up or auditing org structure, landing zones, account/project strategy, SCPs/org policies, centralized logging/billing, tagging standards
rules/02-iam-design.mdDesigning or auditing human access (SSO), workload identity, OIDC federation, permission boundaries, cross-account access, break-glass
rules/03-networking.mdDesigning or auditing VPCs/VNets, subnets, egress control, private endpoints, hub-spoke, DNS, TLS certs, load balancers, CDN, DDoS, IPv6
rules/04-compute-selection.mdChoosing serverless vs containers vs Kubernetes vs VMs; serverless patterns; Kubernetes architecture (autoscaling, requests/limits, PDBs)
rules/05-data-storage.mdDesigning or auditing object storage, lifecycle policies, block/file/object choice, backup architecture, encryption and KMS key strategy
rules/06-cost-finops.mdCost visibility, rightsizing, commitment discounts, spot, egress/NAT traps, unit economics, anomaly detection, cost review in PRs
rules/07-resilience-dr.mdRTO/RPO tiers, multi-AZ vs multi-region decisions, DR strategies, game days, dependency mapping, quotas, graceful degradation
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Cross-cutting tasks read multiple files: a \"review our AWS account\" audit touches all\nseven; \"should we use Kubernetes\" is rules/04 + rules/06.

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Top 10 non-negotiables

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  1. Blast-radius isolation by account/project, not by tag. Prod, non-prod, security\ntooling, and logging live in separate accounts/projects under an org with\nguardrails (SCPs / org policy constraints / Azure Policy). A tag is not a security\nboundary; an account is.
    2. \n
  2. No long-lived credentials for humans. Humans authenticate through SSO/identity\nfederation (IAM Identity Center, Google Cloud Identity, Entra ID) with MFA and\nassume short-lived roles. Zero IAM users with passwords or access keys for people.
    3. \n
  3. Workload identity everywhere. Workloads get roles/service accounts via the\nplatform (instance profiles, IRSA/EKS Pod Identity, GKE Workload Identity, Azure\nmanaged identities) or OIDC federation (CI). A static cloud key in an env var or\nsecret store is a finding, not a pattern.
    4. \n
  4. Public access blocked at the org edge. Account-/org-level public-access blocks\non object storage, org policy forbidding public IPs and public buckets by default;\nexceptions are explicit, listed, and reviewed.
    5. \n
  5. Three-tier network, deny-by-default. Public subnets hold only entry points\n(LBs, NAT); apps in private subnets; data in isolated subnets with no internet\npath. Managed services reached via private endpoints, not the public internet.\nNo 0.0.0.0/0 ingress except 80/443 on edge load balancers.
    6. \n
  6. Simplest compute that meets requirements. Serverless/managed containers before\nKubernetes; Kubernetes only with a written justification (scale, ecosystem need,\nteam to run it). Every K8s workload ships with resource requests/limits, a PDB,\nand topology spread.
    7. \n
  7. Encryption with intentional keys. Everything encrypted at rest (table stakes);\ncustomer-managed keys (CMK) for sensitive data with key policy ≠ data policy, so a\nsingle principal can't both read and exfiltrate.
    8. \n
  8. Backups that survive account compromise. Critical data backed up cross-account\n(and cross-region per DR tier) with immutability/locking. A backup the producing\naccount's admin can delete is not a backup against ransomware.
    9. \n
  9. Cost is an architecture review gate. Allocation tags enforced, per-team\nvisibility, anomaly alerts on; infra PRs state expected cost delta. Egress, NAT\nprocessing, and idle resources are checked in design, not discovered on the bill.
    10. \n
  10. DR is declared and tested. Every system has an assigned RTO/RPO tier and a\nmatching architecture (backup-restore → pilot light → warm standby →\nactive-active). Multi-AZ is the default; multi-region is a justified exception.\nUntested DR plans are assumed broken — game days at least annually for tier-1.
    11. \n
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Operating notes

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