Critical Developer Experience Issues: Comprehensive Documentation and Automation Improvements

[kallal79]

Issue Summary

The current Veraison documentation has several critical gaps that significantly impact developer onboarding, user experience, and project maintainability. This issue addresses multiple pain points discovered through comprehensive analysis.

Problems Identified

1. Inconsistent and Incomplete Setup Instructions

• PSA Demo: Complex manual setup with platform-specific instructions scattered across different sections
• CCA Demo: Missing detailed troubleshooting and installation validation
• Dependencies: Manual installation of protoc, Go tools, and system packages with no validation
• No unified setup experience across different platforms (Ubuntu, macOS, Windows)

2. Missing Automation and Validation

• No setup scripts to automate the complex dependency installation
• No validation tools to verify installations before proceeding
• Makefiles exist but only validate OpenAPI specs - no comprehensive project validation
• No health checks for running services
• Manual error-prone processes for multi-service coordination

3. Documentation Gaps and Inconsistencies

• Placeholder content: "Architecture for Provisioning Endorsements (which is a work in progress)"
• TODOs: "Further details on the above will be available within specific documentation on the reference deployment. (ToDo)"
• Missing error handling documentation for common failure scenarios
• Inconsistent formatting and command examples across demos

4. Poor Developer Experience

• No quick start guide for immediate evaluation
• Complex multi-terminal workflows with no orchestration
• Missing Docker Compose setup for unified development environment
• No automated testing of documentation examples
• No CI/CD validation of setup instructions

Proposed Solutions

1. Unified Setup Automation

• scripts/setup.sh: Automated dependency installation for all platforms
• scripts/validate-setup.sh: Pre-flight checks for all dependencies
• scripts/quick-start.sh: One-command demo environment setup
• Platform detection and adaptation: Ubuntu, macOS, Windows (WSL)

2. Enhanced Validation and Testing

• Extended Makefiles: Comprehensive project validation beyond OpenAPI
• Health check scripts: Verify all services are running correctly
• Documentation testing: Automated validation of all command examples
• Integration testing: End-to-end workflow validation

3. Documentation Improvements

• Complete missing sections: Finish architecture documentation
• Add error handling guides: Common issues and solutions
• Standardize formatting: Consistent command examples and structure
• Add troubleshooting matrix: Platform-specific issue resolution

4. Development Environment Modernization

• Docker Compose improvements: One-command development environment
• VS Code devcontainer: Standardized development environment
• GitHub Actions: Automated validation of documentation
• Hot-reload development: Live service updates during development

Technical Requirements

• Languages: Bash, Python, Docker, Make
• Platforms: Ubuntu 20.04+, macOS 12+, Windows 10+ (WSL2)
• Dependencies: Docker, Docker Compose, Git
• Testing: GitHub Actions, shellcheck, documentation validation

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[bashSunny101]

Hi,
Can I take this up.

[kallal79]

OK

[bashSunny101]

I already started working on this yesterday, kindly assign this to me.
Am ready with the changes to be pushed.