VRO Engineer Onboarding

Editors: Any new additions to onboarding that require the reverse process for offboarding should be added to VRO Engineer Offboarding. See VRO Engineer Offboarding for the offboarding process.

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Engineer Onboarding Checklist

The VRO Onboarding Checklist is a GitHub issue template that can be edited here. Ask the VRO delivery manager to make a Github issue to get you started!

Technical Overview

VRO Software uses a variety of tools and technologies. Here's a quick rundown:

• Java: Most of the project is built using the Spring Framework.
• Python: Partner team projects, also called domain services, are mainly written in Python.
• Ruby: There is one domain service written in Ruby.
• RabbitMQ: The primary communication bus between microservices using AMQP architecture.
• Gradle: Heavily used for build automation (see the buildSrc folder).
• Docker: Used extensively for local development and deployments.
  • Note: Most use cases don't provide a Docker Desktop license, so you'll need an alternative like Colima for local development.
• Postgres: AWS RDS Postgres is used for database services, as defined in Helm charts.
• Redis: Pending removal from the stack.
• Kubernetes: DevOps operations are handled via LHDI's infrastructure.
• ArgoCD: For deployment management (see the issue).

Current State (as of June 2024):
VRO supports two partner teams: Contention Classification (CC) and Employee Experience (EE).

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Projects Overview

The following are the main projects that make up VRO:

Contention Classification (CC)

• Repository: cc-app
• Description: Maps VA.gov disability form contentions to classifications defined in the Benefits Reference Data API.
• Language: Python
• POCs: Contention Classification team

End Product Merge (EP Merge)

• Repository: ep-merge-app
• Description: Automates claim merging, removing the need for manual intervention.
• Language: Python
• POCs: Employee Experience team

Max Claim For Increase (Max CFI)

• Repository: max-cfi-app
• Description: Provides an API for retrieving the maximum disability rating for a specific condition.
• Language: Python
• POCs: Employee Experience team

Benefits Integration Events (BIE)

• Repository: svc-bie-kafka
• Description: Handles event streams for contention changes on the disability compensation form (526).
• Language: Java (Spring Framework)
• POCs: Virtual Regional Office team

Benefits Integration Platform (BIP)

• Repository: svc-bip-api
• Description: Exposes APIs for retrieving claim information, updating statuses, and routing claims.
• Language: Java (Spring Framework)
• POCs: Virtual Regional Office team

Benefits Gateway Services (BGS)

• Repository: svc-bgs-api
• Description: Allows partner teams to create notes on veteran files.
• Language: Ruby
• POCs: Virtual Regional Office team

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Repositories

VRO also uses these key repositories:

• VRO Public Repo: Main repository for the VRO project.
• VRO Internal Repo: Used for running SecRel scans.
• ArgoCD Repo: Contains the ArgoCD URL to view deployments.

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Key Resources

• VRO Architecture Design Diagram: Overview of VRO architecture.
• VRO Engineering Onboarding: Onboarding guidelines for new engineers.
• On-Call Responsibilities: Guidelines for on-call duties.
• Datadog Monitoring: Instructions for setting up and using Datadog for monitoring.