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-# !! Rough notes for now, expand later.
+# Atlassian Data-Center Installation Automation
 
+## Introduction
+
+This repository is a suite of Ansible roles, playbooks and support scripts to
+automate the installation and maintenance of Atlassian Data-Center products in
+cloud environments.
+
+## Usage
+
+### Cloud DC-node deployment playbooks
+
+The usual scenario for usage as part of a cloud deployment is to invoke the
+script as part of post-creation actions invoked while a new product node is
+being brought up. In the case of AWS, this would usually be done by
+[cfn-init][cfn-init]/[user-data][ec2-user-data]. For example, the [Jira
+quickstart template][jira-cfn-tmpl] creates a per-node [launch
+configuration][ec2-launch-config] that fetches this repository and runs the
+appropriate AWS/product playbook, which invokes the appropriate roles.
+
+In practice, the Ansible roles require some information about the infrastructure
+that was deployed (e.g. RDS endpoint/password). The way this is currently
+achieved (on AWS) is that have the CloudFormation template dump this information
+into the file `/etc/atl` as `RESOURCE_VAR=<resource>` lines. This can be then
+sourced as environment variables to be retrieved at runtime. See the
+helper-script `bin/ansible-with-atl-env` for an example.
+
+### Maintenance playbooks
+
+(None currently; TBW)
+
+## Development philosophy
+
+The suite is intended to consist of a number of small, composable roles that can
+be combined together into playbooks. Wherever possible the roles should be
+platform-agnostic as possible, with platform-specific functionality broken out
+into more specific roles.
+
+Where possible the roles are also product-agnostic (e.g. downloads), with more
+specific functionality added in later product-specific roles.
+
+Roles should be reasonably self-contained, with sensible defaults configured in
+`<role>/defaults/main.yml` and overridden by the playbook at runtime. Roles may
+implicitly depend on variables being defined elsewhere where they cannot define
+them natively (e.g. the `jira_config` role depends on the `atl_cluster_node_id`
+var being defined; on AWS this is provided by the `aws_common` role, which
+should be run firs).
 
 ## Ansible layout
 
+
+
 * Global defaults in group_vars/all.yml
 ** This is where env-vars should be converted to Ansible vars. It also acts as a required-env list.
 ** The CF env is usually stored in /etc/atl. The script `bin/ansible-with-atl-env` will run Ansible with that environment set.
 * Runtime information about the EC2 environment can be injected by depending on
-  `aws_common` in a role's `meta/main.yml` (or adding it to the playbook before
+  `apws_common` in a role's `meta/main.yml` (or adding it to the playbook before
   the requiring role.
+
+## License
+
+Copyright © 2019 Atlassian Corporation Pty Ltd.
+Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
+
+
+[cfn-init]: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/cfn-init.html
+[ec2-user-data]: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html
+[jira-cfn-tmpl]: https://github.com/aws-quickstart/quickstart-atlassian-jira/blob/develop/templates/quickstart-jira-dc.template.yaml#L967
+[ec2-launch-config]: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/LaunchConfiguration.html