> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ctrlplane.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Deployment orchestration and infrastructure inventory for platform teams

## What is Ctrlplane?

**Ctrlplane is the orchestration layer between your CI/CD pipelines and your
infrastructure.**

Your CI builds code. Your infrastructure runs it. Ctrlplane orchestrates the
rest through three core concepts:

| Concept         | Question It Answers            | Example                                        |
| --------------- | ------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **Deployment**  | **What** to deploy and **how** | "API Service" deployed via ArgoCD              |
| **Environment** | **Where** to deploy            | "Production" = all clusters with `env: prod`   |
| **Policy**      | **When** to deploy             | "Only after staging succeeds and SRE approves" |

```
Your CI/CD    ──►    Ctrlplane    ──►    Your Infrastructure
 (builds)         (what, where, when)         (deploys)
```

## Start Here

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Why Ctrlplane?" icon="lightbulb" href="./why-ctrlplane">
    See the problems Ctrlplane solves—you'll recognize them
  </Card>

  <Card title="5-Minute Overview" icon="clock" href="./overview">
    Understand the mental model quickly
  </Card>

  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="./quickstart">
    Set up your first deployment pipeline in 15 minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="Comparisons" icon="scale-balanced" href="./comparisons">
    How Ctrlplane fits with ArgoCD, Spinnaker, GitHub Actions
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Two Core Systems

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Deployment Orchestration" icon="rocket" href="./use-cases/environment-promotion">
    Control **when** and **where** releases happen:

    * Auto-promote after verification passes
    * Approval gates for production
    * Gradual rollouts across regions
    * Automatic rollback on failure
  </Card>

  <Card title="Infrastructure Inventory" icon="server" href="./use-cases/infrastructure-inventory">
    Track **what exists** and **what's running**:

    * Real-time resource inventory
    * Dynamic environment membership
    * Version tracking across all targets
    * Works with K8s, AWS, GCP, custom
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Common Use Cases

| Scenario                                                         | What Ctrlplane Does                                               |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Multi-region deployments](./use-cases/multi-region)             | Deploy to 10 clusters sequentially with verification between each |
| [Environment promotion](./use-cases/environment-promotion)       | Auto-promote staging → prod when verification passes              |
| [Deployment verification](./use-cases/deployment-verification)   | Check Datadog metrics before marking a deploy successful          |
| [Infrastructure inventory](./use-cases/infrastructure-inventory) | Answer "what version is running where?" instantly                 |
| [Dynamic environments](./use-cases/dynamic-environments)         | New clusters auto-join environments via selectors                 |

## Who Uses Ctrlplane?

| Team                     | Use Case                                                                    |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Platform Engineering** | Building an IDP with deployment orchestration and infrastructure visibility |
| **DevOps / SRE**         | Enforcing deployment policies and tracking what's running where             |
| **Scaling Startups**     | Moving from "we manually deploy" to automated, policy-driven releases       |
| **Multi-region Teams**   | Coordinating deployments across clusters/regions with a unified inventory   |

## How It Fits Your Stack

Ctrlplane doesn't replace your CI or deployment tooling—it coordinates them:

| Layer           | Tools                                       | What They Do                                  |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| **Build**       | GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins          | Build artifacts, create versions in Ctrlplane |
| **Orchestrate** | **Ctrlplane**                               | Decide when/where to deploy, enforce policies |
| **Execute**     | ArgoCD, K8s Jobs, GitHub Actions, Terraform | Perform the actual deployment                 |
| **Monitor**     | Datadog, Prometheus                         | Provide metrics for verification              |

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Why Ctrlplane?" icon="lightbulb" href="./why-ctrlplane">
    Problems you'll recognize
  </Card>

  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="./quickstart">
    Build your first pipeline
  </Card>
</CardGroup>