SDAF Orientation and Surface Choice

Primer skill. Answers "what is SDAF and which execution surface should I use?" and hands off to the next action-loop skill. Grounded in the shipped docs; no inferred procedures.

When to invoke

Trigger on: "what is SDAF", "where do I start", "SDAF surface", "Local vs ADO vs GitHub", "SDAF plugin install command", "how do I install azure-sap-automation-devops", "which surface for SDAF".

Do NOT trigger on: pre-flight readiness checks, tfvars/WORKSPACES authoring, BOM selection, failed-run triage. Route to the sibling skill instead.

The spine (order is enforced)

Docs enforce this order for every surface:

1. Control plane — deployer + SAP library, establishes remote Terraform state (docs/local/03-00-control-plane.md § Outcome, § What the automation does).
2. Workload zone — landscape / networking / zone Key Vault; reads control-plane state (docs/local/04-00-workload-zone.md § Outcome).
3. SAP system — VMs + inventory; reads deployer + landscape state (docs/local/05-00-sap-system.md § Outcome).
4. Software download — needs the workload-zone Key Vault credentials (docs/local/06-00-software-and-installation.md § Download software).
5. Install — OS + DB + SAP via Ansible playbooks (docs/local/06-00-software-and-installation.md § Run configuration and installation).
6. Operate / recover / remove — reverse dependency order for removal (docs/local/07-00-operations.md § Remove resources).

Never let a stage run before the prior one completed (docs/local/README.md § Complete the journey).

The three execution surfaces

Docs explicitly frame the surfaces as "capability differences, not a ranking": there is no declared primary (docs/deployment-options.md § Select an execution model). They are not one-to-one equivalent.

See references/surface-decision.md for the two-question decision walkthrough and the hand-off to the next skill.

What this skill does and does NOT do

Does: classify the request, explain the spine, help pick a surface, and print the install command for the matching bootstrap plugin — the operator runs it themselves.

Does NOT: install anything. Does not run a plan/apply. Does not fabricate "which surface is best" — the docs decline to rank them and this skill honours that.

Print the surface bootstrap install command

The canonical install commands for the hub and both surface plugins are documented in docs/PLUGINS.md (this repo). Print the block that matches the operator's chosen surface verbatim from that file, and instruct the operator to run it themselves. Do not invent alternatives, do not paraphrase, do not shorten.

The exact command shapes at the time this skill was authored (source: docs/PLUGINS.md):

Azure DevOps — from docs/PLUGINS.md § Install: Azure DevOps surface plugin (azure-sap-automation-devops):

# GitHub Copilot CLI
copilot plugin marketplace add Azure/sap-automation-bootstrap
copilot plugin install azure-sap-automation-devops@sap-automation-bootstrap

# Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add Azure/sap-automation-bootstrap
/plugin install azure-sap-automation-devops@sap-automation-bootstrap

# Gemini CLI
gemini extensions install https://github.com/Azure/sap-automation-bootstrap

GitHub Actions — from docs/PLUGINS.md § Install: GitHub Actions surface plugin (azure-sap-automation-github):

# GitHub Copilot CLI
copilot plugin marketplace add Azure/sap-automation-gh-bootstrap
copilot plugin install azure-sap-automation-github@sap-automation-gh-bootstrap

# Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add Azure/sap-automation-gh-bootstrap
/plugin install azure-sap-automation-github@sap-automation-gh-bootstrap

# Gemini CLI
gemini extensions install https://github.com/Azure/sap-automation-gh-bootstrap

Local — no surface plugin is required. Hand off directly to sdaf-readiness-check.

The Copilot install form is <plugin-name>@<marketplace-name> where the marketplace name matches the repository slug (e.g. sap-automation-bootstrap), not the plugin name. If docs/PLUGINS.md and this skill body ever diverge, docs/PLUGINS.md is the source of truth — update this skill in lockstep.

Hand-off

After the surface is chosen and the surface plugin (if any) is installed by the operator, hand off to sdaf-readiness-check for pre-flight, then sdaf-workspace-and-tfvars before any deploy skill.

See also

• docs/PLUGINS.md — canonical install commands.
• sdaf-readiness-check, sdaf-workspace-and-tfvars, sdaf-control-plane-bootstrap.
• docs/local/README.md, docs/deployment-options.md.