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ADR 0002: Certified vs experimental, evidence is authority

  • Status: Accepted
  • Date: 2026-08-22

Context

The tree ships more adapters than MageLift will stand behind in production. Calling every in-tree runtime "certified" would overclaim. Calling only AWS certified after GCP Autopilot passed would underclaim.

Decision

A cell is certified only when docs/capability-matrix.md and the current file in docs/evidence/ say so. Today that is:

  • AWS ECS Fargate
  • GCP GKE Autopilot (evidenced runtime cells)

AWS EKS, GCP GKE Standard, OVH MKS, and Scaleway Kapsule are experimental. They may change or return ErrNotSupported on day-2 commands. Community compile-in providers are never MageLift-certified.

Evidence, not a descriptor string, is the authority.

Adobe-unsupported combinations fail before mutate unless compatibility.allowUnsupported records that Adobe hatch. The hatch does not recertify a cell and does not apply to MageLift-experimental or provider-unavailable targets.

MageLift-experimental cells (EKS, GKE Standard, OVH MKS, Scaleway Kapsule, dense AWS catalog such as Aurora or Amazon MQ) warn and proceed. The warning names MageLift. They are never silent and never certified.

Provider-unavailable cells (no adapter or SKU) still fail closed.

nginx-fpm is the Adobe-aligned default. frankenphp-classic and php-apache are Adobe-unsupported plugins that require compatibility.allowUnsupported on the current Magento line. Adobe has no row for either plugin, neither is certified, and frankenphp-worker remains unregistered.

Amendment 2026-10-19

MageLift's PHP floor is 8.3. Magento lines whose Adobe row stops below that floor, including 2.4.6, are unavailable. 2.4.7 stays, on PHP 8.3. Recorded 2.4.6 runs stay in the evidence pack.

Consequences

CLI, README, and the public site must match the matrix. A live pass on one Magento 2.4.9 shape does not certify every release, edge vendor, or HA profile.

Alternatives considered

  • Certify every in-tree adapter: rejected. Evidence is incomplete.
  • AWS-only certified forever: rejected once Autopilot passed the Magento suite.

Provenance

docs/capability-matrix.md and docs/evidence/README.md.