core practice · system design prompt
Design exercise: Infrastructure Automation
Declarative infrastructure, state, plans, drift detection, policy checks, secrets boundaries, and safe changes. Implement designOutline() returning non-empty values for: desiredState, driftDetection, changeSafety. Each value must name a concrete mechanism or decision.
The mechanism
Infrastructure automation is a convergent state machine. Desired configuration, observed state, diff, approval, and rollback must all be inspectable.
Expected evidence
A design outline with desiredState, driftDetection, changeSafety plus an explicit failure mode or trade-off.
Try this drill in the practice workspace →
Hints when you need them
- Name the failure mode before selecting the mechanism.