Define a portable deployable-artifact contract #13000

Overview

"Output deployable artifacts" could mean compiled ARM JSON, Kubernetes DeploymentTemplate YAML, a bundle containing parameters and metadata, or an OCI artifact.

Define one portable artifact contract that can be produced separately from deployment and consumed by GitHub Actions, Argo CD, other CI/CD systems, and automation.

Parent: #12996

Child implementation issue: #13001

Questions to resolve

• What files and metadata constitute an artifact?
• Is the artifact a file, directory, archive, or OCI package?
• Does it contain compiled templates, parameter declarations, source metadata, recipe references, checksums, and schema versions?
• Which values are bound at build time versus deployment time?
• How are environment-specific values represented?
• How are integrity, provenance, and compatibility verified?
• Which existing formats can be reused?
• What content is prohibited because it may expose secrets?

Completion criteria

• The specification defines the artifact format and versioning rules.
• Build-time and deployment-time responsibilities are explicitly separated.
• The contract supports at least GitHub Actions and the selected Argo CD integration.
• Secret handling and provenance requirements are documented.
• Compatibility behavior for unknown or newer artifact versions is defined.
• At least one example artifact and JSON Schema or equivalent machine-readable schema is checked into the repository.
• A proof of concept produces an artifact in one process and deploys it in a separate process.
• Implementation work is decomposed into scoped follow-up issues.

Out of scope

• Defining a general-purpose replacement for OCI.
• Embedding cloud credentials or secret parameter values in an artifact.
• Requiring a particular CI/CD product.

Related

• Scope work for Deployment Lineage (versioned infrastructure graph) #12128
• Add Repo Radius verify/deploy workflows to the repo #12118
• Productize the GitHub Actions deployment contract for Radius #12997
• Define the supported Argo CD integration model for Radius #12998
• Specify dry-run and deployment-plan semantics #13002
• Define agent-safe deployment primitives and machine-readable contracts #13003