Files
config-atlas/research/sources.md
tegwick 6d6f99d5ea docs: mirror Gitea wiki and add config control plane research
Mirror the five Gitea wiki pages into wiki/ (Home, ProductVision,
BrandFrame, ConfigLayering, CompetitiveLandscape) as a verbatim in-repo
copy.

Add research/ digest on configuration layering and the configuration
control plane: the resolution/merge model, the 2024-2026 config-outage
case, adjacent tool families (config-as-data, GitOps drift, feature
flags + AI config, secrets, policy-as-code, CMDB/portals/SSPM), a
reference architecture, and an annotated bibliography of 17 sources.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-26 19:28:33 +02:00

4.9 KiB

Sources — Configuration Control Plane research

Annotated bibliography for configuration-control-plane.md. Captured 2026-06-26. "internal" citations refer to this repo's own wiki/ConfigLayering.md and wiki/CompetitiveLandscape.md, which already carry their own source lists.

Category framing

  1. Configuration as a Control Plane: Designing for Safety and Reliability at Scale — InfoQ. The anchor source. Argues hyperscalers independently converged on the same safety patterns (staged rollout, blast-radius containment, dependency-aware validation, automated rollback) and names the emerging tech: reconciler-first control planes, configuration knowledge graphs, AI-assisted decision support. https://www.infoq.com/articles/configuration-control-plane/

  2. CUE Hub: the Configuration Control Plane — CUE Labs. Independent use of the exact category phrase; a vendor branding a product as "the configuration control plane." Evidence the category name is forming. https://cue.dev/blog/announcing-cue-labs/

Layering, schema, and merge semantics

  1. Config Wars — Chapter 3: CUE — Miru's Blog (Vedant Nair). Comparative analysis of CUE vs JSON Schema vs Jsonnet merge semantics; establishes CUE's commutative/associative/idempotent unification and Jsonnet's order-dependent mixin composition. https://mirurobotics.substack.com/p/config-wars-chapter-3-cue

  2. Data Validation use case — CUE official docs. Primary source: CUE merges schema and data; one definition both validates and templates. https://cuelang.org/docs/concept/data-validation-use-case/

  3. Declarative Management of Kubernetes Objects Using Kustomize — Kubernetes docs. Canonical base/overlay layering pattern. https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/manage-kubernetes-objects/kustomization/

  4. Store config in the environment — The Twelve-Factor App. Foundational "separate config from code" principle underpinning the kind-separation. https://12factor.net/config

Configuration-as-data

  1. Introducing ConfigHub — Brian Grant, ITNEXT. Closest direct competitor; "configuration as authoritative data," WET rendered config, versioned units, live-state reconciliation. https://itnext.io/introducing-confighub-b127736641c5

  2. What is Configuration as Data? — Brian Grant, ITNEXT. Primary articulation of CaD vs IaC; data is authoritative, code operates on it separately. https://itnext.io/what-is-configuration-as-data-210b0c4be324

  3. Configuration as Data — ConfigHub docs. Product-doc treatment of the same concept, incl. updating config from live state. https://docs.confighub.com/background/config-as-data/

GitOps / drift / desired vs effective state

  1. GitOps Prescription: Curing the Configuration Drift Epidemic — BridgePhase. Desired-state vs live-state reconciliation, drift detection/self-healing with Argo CD and Flux. https://bridgephase.com/insights/drift-detection/

Feature flags, progressive delivery, AI-era config

  1. Kill switches vs progressive delivery — Unleash. Ring-based rollout, blast-radius containment, kill switch / circuit-breaker patterns. https://www.getunleash.io/blog/kill-switch-vs-progressive-delivery

  2. 7 Advanced Feature Flagging Best Practices for 2025 — OpsMoon. Progressive delivery cohorts, SLO-triggered automated rollback. https://opsmoon.com/blog/feature-flagging-best-practices/

  3. AI Configs is now GA: Runtime control for prompts and models — LaunchDarkly. Prompts/model selection as runtime config; <200ms propagation; guarded rollouts that auto-revert on eval-metric regression. https://launchdarkly.com/blog/ai-configs-ga-runtime-control-prompts-models/

  4. LaunchDarkly launches runtime control layer for the agentic AI era — SiliconANGLE. Independent coverage of AgentControl; runtime control of AI agents without redeploy. https://siliconangle.com/2026/05/19/launchdarkly-launches-runtime-control-layer-agentic-ai-era/

Outages — why configuration safety matters

  1. Configuration Change Trouble & Other 2024 Outage Trends — ThousandEyes. Names configuration change as a leading recurring outage cause. https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/internet-report-configuration-change-outages

  2. 8 major IT disasters of 2024 — CIO. CrowdStrike Falcon config update, AT&T equipment config error, McDonald's POS third-party config change. https://www.cio.com/article/3624552/8-major-it-disasters-of-2024.html

  3. Azure Front Door Outage: How a Single Control-Plane Defect Exposed Architectural Fragility — InfoQ. Control-plane defect as outage cause; reinforces the control-plane safety thesis. https://www.infoq.com/news/2025/11/azure-afd-control-plane-failure/