# Production Hardening Requirements

**MCP Coordination System Production Deployment Specification**

## Executive Summary

This document outlines the complete hardening requirements for deploying the MCP Coordination System from development to production. The system must transition from localhost development with self-signed certificates to a secure, scalable, containerized deployment suitable for enterprise AI coordination.

## Critical Security Requirements

### 1. SSL/TLS Certificate Management
- **MANDATORY**: Replace self-signed certificates with valid CA-signed certificates
- **Certificate Authority**: Use Let's Encrypt for automated renewal or enterprise PKI
- **Certificate Rotation**: Automated 90-day renewal cycle
- **Certificate Storage**: Secure key management (HashiCorp Vault, AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault)
- **TLS Configuration**: TLS 1.3 minimum, disable legacy protocols
- **HSTS Headers**: Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security

### 2. Authentication & Authorization
- **API Authentication**: Implement JWT or OAuth 2.0 for MCP clients
- **Instance Registration**: Secure authentication for AI instance registration
- **Role-Based Access**: Enforce role-based permissions (COO, PM, PA, etc.)
- **Rate Limiting**: Implement per-client rate limiting and DDoS protection
- **Audit Logging**: Complete audit trail of all authentication events

### 3. Network Security
- **Firewall Rules**: Restrict inbound traffic to necessary ports only
- **VPN/Private Networks**: Deploy within private network boundaries
- **IP Allowlisting**: Restrict access to known client IP ranges
- **Reverse Proxy**: Use nginx or Traefik as secure reverse proxy
- **CORS Policy**: Strict CORS configuration for web interfaces

## Container & Infrastructure Requirements

### 1. Docker Containerization
```dockerfile
# Production Dockerfile Requirements:
FROM node:20-alpine AS production
RUN adduser -D -s /bin/sh appuser
USER appuser
WORKDIR /app
COPY --chown=appuser:appuser . .
EXPOSE 3444
HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=10s --retries=3 \
  CMD curl -f https://localhost:3444/health || exit 1
CMD ["node", "src/sse-server.js"]
```

### 2. Multi-Stage Build Process
- **Stage 1**: Dependencies installation and vulnerability scanning
- **Stage 2**: Testing and code quality checks
- **Stage 3**: Production build with minimal attack surface
- **Stage 4**: Runtime container with non-root user

### 3. Container Security Hardening
- **Non-Root User**: Run all processes as non-root user
- **Read-Only Filesystem**: Mount application code as read-only
- **Resource Limits**: CPU and memory limits to prevent resource exhaustion
- **Secrets Management**: Use Docker secrets or Kubernetes secrets
- **Image Scanning**: Automated vulnerability scanning (Trivy, Snyk, Clair)

## Data Protection & Storage

### 1. Data Encryption
- **Data at Rest**: Encrypt all JSON data files with AES-256
- **Data in Transit**: TLS 1.3 for all network communications
- **Message Privacy**: End-to-end encryption for sensitive AI coordination data
- **Key Rotation**: Regular encryption key rotation schedule

### 2. Data Persistence Strategy
- **Volume Mounts**: Persistent volumes for data directory
- **Backup Strategy**: Automated daily backups with point-in-time recovery
- **Data Retention**: Configurable data retention policies
- **Disaster Recovery**: Cross-region backup replication
- **Data Migration**: Zero-downtime data migration procedures

### 3. Message Privacy Compliance
- **Privacy by Design**: Default privacy settings for AI instance communications
- **Data Minimization**: Store only necessary coordination data
- **Right to Deletion**: Implement data deletion capabilities
- **Access Controls**: Strict access controls for sensitive message data

## High Availability & Scalability

### 1. Load Balancing & Clustering
- **Load Balancer**: Application load balancer with health checks
- **Horizontal Scaling**: Multi-instance deployment capability
- **Session Affinity**: Sticky sessions for MCP client connections
- **Auto-Scaling**: CPU/memory-based auto-scaling rules
- **Blue-Green Deployment**: Zero-downtime deployment strategy

### 2. Resilience & Fault Tolerance
- **Health Checks**: Comprehensive health check endpoints
- **Circuit Breakers**: Implement circuit breaker patterns
- **Graceful Shutdown**: Proper SIGTERM handling and connection draining
- **Error Recovery**: Automatic recovery from transient failures
- **Timeout Configuration**: Appropriate timeouts for all operations

### 3. Performance Optimization
- **Connection Pooling**: HTTP connection pooling for efficiency
- **Caching Strategy**: In-memory caching for frequently accessed data
- **Compression**: Response compression (gzip/brotli)
- **CDN Integration**: Static asset delivery via CDN
- **Database Optimization**: Query optimization and indexing

## Monitoring & Observability

### 1. Logging Requirements
- **Structured Logging**: JSON-formatted logs with consistent schema
- **Log Aggregation**: Centralized logging (ELK Stack, Splunk, DataDog)
- **Log Rotation**: Automated log rotation and archival
- **Audit Logs**: Immutable audit trail for compliance
- **Performance Logs**: Request/response times and throughput metrics

### 2. Metrics & Monitoring
- **Application Metrics**: Custom metrics for MCP operations
- **Infrastructure Metrics**: CPU, memory, disk, network monitoring
- **Business Metrics**: AI instance coordination effectiveness
- **Alerting Rules**: Automated alerts for critical issues
- **Dashboard Creation**: Real-time operational dashboards

### 3. Distributed Tracing
- **Request Tracing**: End-to-end request tracing (Jaeger, Zipkin)
- **Performance Profiling**: Application performance monitoring
- **Error Tracking**: Centralized error tracking and analysis
- **Dependency Mapping**: Service dependency visualization

## Compliance & Governance

### 1. Security Compliance
- **Vulnerability Management**: Regular security vulnerability assessments
- **Penetration Testing**: Periodic penetration testing
- **Security Headers**: Complete security header implementation
- **Content Security Policy**: Strict CSP for web interfaces
- **Input Validation**: Comprehensive input validation and sanitization

### 2. Operational Compliance
- **Configuration Management**: Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Helm)
- **Change Management**: Documented change approval process
- **Incident Response**: 24/7 incident response procedures
- **Disaster Recovery**: Tested disaster recovery plans
- **Backup Verification**: Regular backup restoration testing

### 3. Documentation Requirements
- **Runbook Documentation**: Complete operational procedures
- **Architecture Documentation**: System architecture and data flows
- **Security Documentation**: Security policies and procedures
- **API Documentation**: Complete MCP API documentation
- **Training Materials**: Operations team training materials

## Deployment Pipeline

### 1. CI/CD Pipeline Requirements
```yaml
# Production Pipeline Stages:
stages:
  - security_scan
  - unit_tests
  - integration_tests
  - performance_tests
  - container_build
  - vulnerability_scan
  - staging_deploy
  - smoke_tests
  - production_deploy
  - post_deploy_validation
```

### 2. Quality Gates
- **Code Coverage**: Minimum 80% test coverage
- **Security Scan**: Zero high-severity vulnerabilities
- **Performance Test**: Response time SLA compliance
- **Load Testing**: Handle expected peak load + 50% buffer
- **Chaos Engineering**: Fault injection testing

### 3. Rollback Strategy
- **Automated Rollback**: Automatic rollback on health check failures
- **Database Migration**: Reversible database migration strategy
- **Traffic Shifting**: Gradual traffic shifting for new deployments
- **Rollback Testing**: Regular rollback procedure testing
- **Recovery Time Objective**: < 5 minutes for critical issues

## Environment Configuration

### 1. Environment Separation
- **Development**: Local development with self-signed certificates
- **Staging**: Production-like environment with valid certificates
- **Production**: Fully hardened production deployment
- **DR Environment**: Disaster recovery environment in different region

### 2. Configuration Management
- **Environment Variables**: All configuration via environment variables
- **Secrets Management**: External secrets management system
- **Configuration Validation**: Startup configuration validation
- **Dynamic Configuration**: Hot-reload for non-critical configuration
- **Configuration Drift Detection**: Automated drift detection

## Success Criteria

### 1. Performance Benchmarks
- **Response Time**: 95th percentile < 200ms for MCP operations
- **Throughput**: Handle 1000+ concurrent AI instance connections
- **Uptime**: 99.9% availability SLA
- **Recovery Time**: < 5 minutes for automatic recovery
- **Scalability**: Linear scaling to 10x base capacity

### 2. Security Validation
- **Penetration Test**: Pass external penetration testing
- **Vulnerability Scan**: Zero high/critical vulnerabilities
- **Compliance Audit**: Pass security compliance audit
- **Certificate Validation**: Valid CA-signed certificates
- **Encryption Verification**: End-to-end encryption validation

### 3. Operational Readiness
- **Monitoring Coverage**: 100% critical path monitoring
- **Alert Response**: < 5 minute alert response time
- **Documentation Complete**: All operational procedures documented
- **Team Training**: Operations team fully trained
- **Incident Response**: Tested incident response procedures

## Implementation Phases

### Phase 1: Security Foundation (Week 1-2)
- SSL certificate implementation
- Authentication system
- Container security hardening
- Basic monitoring setup

### Phase 2: Scalability & Performance (Week 3-4)
- Load balancing configuration
- Performance optimization
- Auto-scaling implementation
- Caching layer deployment

### Phase 3: Observability & Compliance (Week 5-6)
- Complete monitoring stack
- Audit logging implementation
- Documentation completion
- Compliance validation

### Phase 4: Production Deployment (Week 7-8)
- Production environment setup
- Full deployment pipeline
- Load testing and validation
- Go-live preparation and execution

---

**Document Version**: 1.0  
**Last Updated**: 2025-09-03  
**Next Review**: 2025-10-03  
**Owner**: MCP Coordination System Team  
**Approved By**: [Pending COO Review]

*This document represents the complete hardening requirements for transforming the MCP Coordination System from development prototype to production-ready enterprise AI coordination platform.*