shopdb-flask/docs/adr/ADR-004-deployment-topology.md

ADR-004: Deployment topology (per-site instances)

• Status: ACCEPTED
• Date: 2026-05-08
• Deciders: cproudlock

Context

shopdb-flask manages shop-floor inventory. If multiple GE Aerospace sites adopt it, the deployment can take one of two shapes:

Model	How it works
Per-site instances	Each site runs its own Flask + MySQL + Vue stack. Each site has its own DB, its own users, its own enabled-plugin list, its own deploy. Sites are isolated.
Multi-tenant single instance	One central Flask + MySQL + Vue stack serves all sites. A siteid foreign key on every asset partitions data. Auth distinguishes which site a user belongs to.

The codebase today is single-tenant per deployment. There is no siteid column, no tenant filter, no cross-site auth model. Plugins can be enabled / disabled but only globally for the running instance.

Decision

PROPOSED: Per-site instances. Each adopting site runs its own dedicated stack. The framework does not support multi-tenancy.

Each site:

• Owns its database (own credentials, own backup policy, own retention). The database charset is part of the contract: it must be utf8mb4 (utf8mb4_unicode_ci). The migration chain creates every table utf8mb4, and the connection pins ?charset=utf8mb4. A site that creates the database with a different default charset (older MySQL defaults to latin1) gets a schema that silently diverges from every other site. See docs/DEPLOY.md.
• Picks its own enabled plugins
• Configures its own JWT secret, CORS allowlist, Zabbix integration, Active Directory binding
• Deploys at its own cadence

The framework provides:

• A Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml template suitable for a single-site deploy
• A .env.example listing all required environment variables
• A docs/DEPLOY.md walking through a fresh-site install

Consequences

Positive

• Simpler code: no tenant filter on every query, no cross-tenant auth, no shared-state partitioning bugs.
• Sites are independent. A schema change at one site does not affect another. A plugin crash at one site does not blast radius to other sites.
• Clear ownership: each site's IT team owns their own stack and data. Compliance and audit boundaries match operational boundaries.
• Aligns with how GE Aerospace sites already operate (independent IT, independent shop floors).

Negative / cost

• No cross-site reporting out of the box. If GE corporate ever wants a fleet-wide view, it has to be built on top (e.g., a roll-up dashboard that queries each site's API). That layer is out of scope for the framework.
• Each site administers its own stack. Higher operational overhead than a single central instance, but each site already runs its own infrastructure.
• Updates require visiting each site's deploy. Fine for the current adoption model; revisit if dozens of sites adopt.

Neutral

• No siteid column needed. The existence of one DB per site is the partition.

Alternatives considered

1. Multi-tenant single instance. Lower operational overhead at scale, easier cross-site reporting, but adds significant code complexity and risk: every query needs a tenant filter, auth gets complex, schema migrations affect every site at once, and a bug at one site can leak data across sites. Rejected for v1; revisit if and only if more than five sites adopt and operational overhead becomes painful.
2. Hybrid: per-site DB but central app server. Adds the operational complexity of multi-tenancy without isolating the failure domain (one app crash = all sites down). Rejected.

Migration strategy (resolved)

Deploys run a single core Alembic chain: flask db upgrade. Bundled plugins do NOT carry their own migration chains - their tables are folded into the core chain (migration 7c04_fold_plugin_schema). This was a deliberate resolution of the Phase 7B footgun where bundled-plugin baselines and the core baseline both created the same tables, so flask plugin upgrade-all would conflict. A fresh flask db upgrade reproduces the live schema exactly (verified on a scratch DB).

External (out-of-tree) plugins per ADR-003 may still ship their own migrations; the framework supports per-plugin chains for them. Only the in-tree bundled plugins are consolidated into core.

Open questions

• Should the framework provide an optional read-only fleet roll-up mode where a "central" instance can pull aggregate metrics from each site's API? Defer. Out of scope for v1.
• Backup strategy per site: framework recommendation, or each site decides? Framework should publish a recommended backup runbook (mysqldump + offsite copy) but not enforce.
• Auth federation: each site has its own user table, or sites can share an LDAP / SSO? Recommend documenting the LDAP config knob in .env.example so sites can plug in their own auth without code change.

References

• shopdb/config.py (currently single-tenant, no siteid)
• ADR-001 (asset model is per-site, not cross-site)
• ADR-003 (plugin distribution per site)