Getting Started with DevOps-OS#

Welcome! This guide walks you through DevOps-OS from zero to your first generated pipeline in under five minutes.

What is DevOps-OS?#

DevOps-OS is a toolkit that generates production-ready CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes manifests, and SRE monitoring configs — so you can stop writing boilerplate and start shipping.

Category	Tools
CI/CD	GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins
GitOps / Deploy	ArgoCD, Flux CD, kubectl, Kustomize
Containers	Docker, Helm
SRE / Observability	Prometheus alert rules, Grafana dashboards, SLO configs
AI Integration	Claude (MCP Server), OpenAI (function calling)

Prerequisites#

Requirement	Why
Python 3.10+	Runs the CLI generators
pip	Installs Python dependencies
Git	Clones the repo
Docker (optional)	Builds / runs the dev container
VS Code + Dev Containers extension (optional)	Opens the pre-configured dev environment

1 — Clone and install#

git clone https://github.com/cloudengine-labs/devops_os.git
cd devops_os

Set up a virtual environment (strongly recommended):

python -m venv .venv

# Activate
source .venv/bin/activate        # macOS / Linux
# .venv\Scripts\activate         # Windows (cmd)
# .venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1     # Windows (PowerShell)

Install the CLI dependencies:

pip install -r cli/requirements.txt

Run source .venv/bin/activate in every new terminal session before using python -m cli.* commands.

2 — Learn the Process-First philosophy (recommended)#

Before running any generator, understand why each tool exists:

python -m cli.devopsos process-first                    # full overview
python -m cli.devopsos process-first --section what     # 5 core principles
python -m cli.devopsos process-first --section mapping  # which scaffold encodes which principle
python -m cli.devopsos process-first --section tips     # AI prompts for deeper learning

See the Process-First guide for the full reference.

3 — Generate your first CI/CD pipeline#

All scaffold generators are subcommands of the unified devopsos scaffold command. Use --help on any subcommand to see all options.

GitHub Actions#

python -m cli.devopsos scaffold gha --name my-app --languages python,javascript --type complete

Output: .github/workflows/my-app-complete.yml

GitLab CI#

python -m cli.devopsos scaffold gitlab --name my-app --languages python --type complete

Output: .gitlab-ci.yml

Jenkins#

python -m cli.devopsos scaffold jenkins --name my-app --languages java --type complete

Output: Jenkinsfile

4 — Generate Kubernetes / GitOps configs#

# ArgoCD Application CR + AppProject
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold argocd --name my-app \
       --repo https://github.com/myorg/my-app.git \
       --namespace production
# Output: argocd/application.yaml + argocd/appproject.yaml

# Flux CD configs
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold argocd --name my-app --method flux \
       --repo https://github.com/myorg/my-app.git
# Output: flux/ directory

5 — Generate SRE configs#

python -m cli.devopsos scaffold sre --name my-app --team platform

Output: sre/ directory containing:

alert-rules.yaml — Prometheus PrometheusRule CR
grafana-dashboard.json — Grafana importable dashboard
slo.yaml — Sloth-compatible SLO manifest
alertmanager-config.yaml — Alertmanager routing stub

6 — Interactive wizard (all-in-one)#

python -m cli.devopsos init              # interactive project configurator
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold gha      # scaffold GitHub Actions
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold gitlab   # scaffold GitLab CI
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold jenkins  # scaffold Jenkins
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold argocd   # scaffold ArgoCD / Flux
python -m cli.devopsos scaffold sre      # scaffold SRE configs

7 — Use with an AI assistant#

pip install -r mcp_server/requirements.txt
python mcp_server/server.py

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devops-os": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server.server"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/devops_os"
    }
  }
}

Then ask Claude: “Generate a complete GitLab CI pipeline for a Python Flask API with Docker build and ArgoCD deployment.”

Next steps#

I want to…	Read
Understand the Process-First philosophy	Process-First guide
See every CLI option and output path	CLI Reference
Deep-dive GitHub Actions	GitHub Actions
Deep-dive GitLab CI	GitLab CI
Deep-dive Jenkins	Jenkins
Learn ArgoCD integration	GitOps & ArgoCD
Set up SRE monitoring configs	SRE Configuration
Set up the dev container	Dev Container
Use with Claude / ChatGPT	AI Integration