Operational model

Roles

• Developers work with producers, Spark jobs, SQL, and Python using uv and Compose.
• Operators run Makefile targets and scripts/*.sh, tune ALERT_* and related env vars (see .env.example).

Environments

• Local Compose is the reference runtime for demos and integration checks.
• CI runs fast static checks without Compose; optional workflows exercise Compose with minimal census fixtures.

Safety defaults

• Dry-run producers (*_DRY_RUN=1) avoid live vendor calls for demos.
• ALERTS_WARN_ONLY=1 is common with stale fixtures so freshness SLIs do not page incorrectly.
• make db-bootstrap-minimal with MINIMAL_CENSUS_REPLACE_ALL=1 can truncate geo tables — disposable DBs / CI only.

Releases

• make release-check is the maintainer gate (lint, tests, docs strict build, smoke).
• CHANGELOG.md and docs/release/ describe scope; they do not claim scientific validation.

Calibration exports

Exports under artifacts/calibration/ are immutable review bundles. Metadata must not contain passwords, raw DSNs, or tokens.