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Mini Factory and Factory Floor

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Before HSF 2.3, every resource created through HSF existed as an IaCM workspace in the single Solutions Factory project. As adoption grows, a single project that holds the state for every team, every organization, and every resource type becomes an operational burden.

Factory Floor and Mini Factory are the two building blocks of the distributed HSF model introduced in HSF 2.3. A Factory Floor is the set of core workspace pipelines deployed into a project so that project can run the HSF framework locally. A Mini Factory applies that idea per organization: each organization gets its own factory project, and resources requested for that organization are created as workspaces there instead of in the central Solutions Factory project. Both remain orchestrated and governed through the central Solutions Factory.

What you will learn​

  • Factory Floor: What a Factory Floor is, which pipelines it deploys, and which projects it can be deployed to.
  • Mini Factory: How the Mini Factory model changes where workspaces are created, and what stays in the central project.
  • How the two relate: Why enabling Mini Factory results in a Factory Floor per organization.
  • How to enable each model: The workspace variable and pipeline that turn on Mini Factory, and how to add a Factory Floor to an existing organization or project.

Before you begin​

This page assumes:

  • HSF 2.3 or later: Mini Factory and the factory-floor model were introduced in HSF 2.3. Go to Upgrade HSF to move to a supported version.
  • HSF Admin access: Enabling either model means editing the Harness Solutions Factory workspace and running pipelines in the Solutions Factory project, which requires membership of the HSF Admins user group.
  • Familiarity with IaCM workspaces: Every resource HSF creates is backed by a workspace. Go to Workspaces to understand how workspaces hold Terraform state and variables.

Go to Created Resources to review the organization, projects, and pipelines a standard HSF deployment creates.

Factory Floor​

A Factory Floor is the set of core workspace pipelines applied to a project so that the project can run the HSF framework directly, rather than delegating execution to the central Solutions Factory project. This is what makes a distributed architecture possible: workflow orchestration and workspace management happen inside the consumer project.

Each Factory Floor deploys six pipelines:

  • Create and Manage IACM Workspaces
  • Provision Workspace
  • Plan and Validate IACM Workspace
  • Execute Drift Analysis
  • Teardown IACM Workspace
  • Bulk Workspace Management

These are the standard pipelines required to run all Harness provisioning. Go to Created Resources to review what each pipeline does.

A Factory Floor can be deployed to any new or existing project using the Deploy HSF Factory Floor to Project pipeline. Deploy a Factory Floor on its own when you want to onboard a team that runs automation in its own project without the full Mini Factory model.

Mini Factory​

A Mini Factory brings an individual factory project to each organization. When resources are requested for a particular organization, the workspace is created in that organization's factory project instead of in the central Solutions Factory project. Each factory project receives a Factory Floor, so it has the six core pipelines it needs to provision and manage those workspaces locally.

The Mini Factory model distributes workspace management while keeping governance central: templates, approvals, and the core framework are still owned and orchestrated by the central Solutions Factory.

note

Enabling Mini Factory does not move workspaces that already exist. Workspaces created before enablement remain in the Solutions Factory project and continue to work there. Only workspaces created after enablement land in the per-organization factory projects.

Enable the distributed model​

Turn on Mini Factory to get a factory project for every organization you create from that point on, or deploy a Factory Floor to a single existing organization or project.

Enabling Mini Factory changes the default placement for every new organization.

  1. Navigate to the Solutions Factory project, then select IaCM Workspaces.
  2. Select the Harness Solutions Factory workspace, then select the Connectors and Variables tab.
  3. Set enable_hsf_mini_factory to true, then save the workspace configuration.
  4. Navigate to Pipelines, then run Deploy Solutions Factory.
  5. Run Register Custom IDP Templates so the workflow definitions in IDP target the per-organization factory projects.

Once enabled, a factory project with its own Factory Floor is created each time you create a new organization.

Verify the deployment​

Open the target project and confirm the six Factory Floor pipelines are present under Pipelines. If they are missing, check the execution logs of Deploy Solutions Factory or Deploy HSF Factory Floor to Project for failed stages.

  • Created Resources: Review every organization, project, pipeline, workspace, and variable HSF creates.
  • HSF overview and key concepts: Understand how Factory Floor and Mini Factory fit alongside the template libraries, Hub, and operating modes.
  • Workflows overview: Understand how a workflow submission becomes an IaCM workspace and pipeline execution.
  • HSF Hub: Learn how to run HSF workflows as pipelines without a dependency on Harness IDP.
  • Upgrade HSF: Move to HSF 2.3 or later to use the distributed model.
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