CI/CD integration

1. Prepare your environment
   1. Set up authentication credentials:

      # Store credentials in a secure CI/CD variable
      export N9_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id"
      export N9_CLIENT_SECRET="your-client-secret"
   2. Create a configuration file (~/.config/nobl9/config.toml):

      defaultContext = "ci-pipeline"
   
      [Contexts]
         [Contexts.ci-pipeline]
             clientId = "${N9_CLIENT_ID}"
             clientSecret = "${N9_CLIENT_SECRET}"
2. Install sloctl in your CI/CD pipeline

Option A: Using the Docker image (recommended)

# In your CI/CD configuration:
stages:
  - deploy-slos

deploy-slos:
  stage: deploy-slos
  image: nobl9/sloctl:latest
  script:
    # Set up the authentication configuration
    - mkdir -p /home/appuser/.config/nobl9
    - echo "$N9_CONFIG" > /home/appuser/.config/nobl9/config.toml
    # Apply SLO definitions using sloctl
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/

Option B: Direct installation using sloctl

# In your CI/CD configuration:
stages:
  - deploy-slos

deploy-slos:
  stage: deploy-slos
  script:
    # Download and install sloctl
    - curl -L https://github.com/nobl9/sloctl/releases/latest/download/sloctl_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz | tar xz
    - chmod +x sloctl
    - mv sloctl /usr/local/bin/
    # Set up configuration
    - mkdir -p ~/.config/nobl9
    - echo "$N9_CONFIG" > ~/.config/nobl9/config.toml
    # Apply SLO definitions
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/

3. Structure your SLO definitions repository:

repository-root/
├── .gitlab-ci.yml (or other CI/CD config)
├── slo-definitions/
│   ├── production/
│   │   ├── api-service.yaml
│   │   ├── database.yaml
│   │   └── frontend.yaml
│   ├── staging/
│   │   ├── api-service.yaml
│   │   └── database.yaml
│   └── shared/
│       ├── alert-methods.yaml
│       └── alert-policies.yaml
└── README.md

4. Create validation steps

validate-slos:
  stage: validate
  image: nobl9/sloctl:latest
  script:
    # Validate SLO YAML syntax without applying
    - for file in $(find ./slo-definitions -name "*.yaml"); do
        echo "Validating $file";
        sloctl apply -f $file --dry-run;
      done

5. Implement continuous delivery of SLOs

# GitLab CI example for branch-based deployments
deploy-to-staging:
  stage: deploy
  image: nobl9/sloctl:latest
  script:
    - sloctl config use-context staging
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/staging/
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/shared/
  only:
    - develop

deploy-to-production:
  stage: deploy
  image: nobl9/sloctl:latest
  script:
    - sloctl config use-context production
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/production/
    - sloctl apply -f ./slo-definitions/shared/
  only:
    - main
  when: manual # Requires manual approval

6. Add reporting and verification

verify-deployment:
  stage: verify
  image: nobl9/sloctl:latest
  script:
    # Check if SLOs were properly applied
    - sloctl get slos --project my-project > applied-slos.txt
    # Optional: Generate report of current SLO status
    - for slo in $(sloctl get slos -o name --project my-project); do
        sloctl replay $slo --last 24h >> slo-status-report.txt;
      done
    # Archive reports as artifacts
    - echo "SLO deployment completed successfully"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - applied-slos.txt
      - slo-status-report.txt

Best practices for CI/CD integration

1. Version control all SLO definitions - Track changes and apply proper review processes
2. Use environment-specific contexts - Maintain separate configurations for dev, staging, and production
3. Implement dry-run validation - Test changes before applying them to production
4. Add automatic testing - Verify SLO configurations work as expected
5. Use descriptive commit messages - Document why SLO changes were made
6. Implement role-based permissions - Limit who can deploy to production
7. Include post-deployment verification - Confirm SLOs are correctly applied
8. Automate rollbacks - Be prepared to revert to previous SLO definitions if needed

This CI/CD integration allows teams to maintain SLOs as code, ensuring consistency, traceability, and automation in managing service level objectives across environments.