This chapter serves the activity of building and running the AI platform: provisioning infrastructure as code, running containers, training and registering models, serving them, retrieving the data they use and putting a gateway in front of every model call. It treats all four kinds of tool. The artefacts are the registry entries, descriptors, rules, configurations and checks that AI Platform and Security defines (3, Nordqvist, 2026), together with the infrastructure listings of Architecture as Code (1, Nordqvist, 2025). The third-party tools are the infrastructure-as-code engines, the container platform, the MLOps and serving software and the portal framework that those volumes name. The methods are two statements of one organisational idea, the platform team as a product team. The chapter also draws on AI Governance (2, Nordqvist, 2026) for the team topology and the shared-platform agreement, and on AI Operations (10, Nordqvist, 2026) for the way state engines keep declared and actual state together.
A reader meets two kinds of choice here, and the series asks for them to be kept apart: which parts of the platform are an open standard or a replaceable component, and which are a product whose replacement has a price. The series does not recommend products. It records which tool each volume uses in its examples and what that volume says the tool is for. Where a volume names a tool in passing, the chapter says so, and for third-party software the facts come from the tool's own documentation as listed in the bibliography of this book. Some tools the inventory placed here belong more naturally elsewhere, and the findings file for this chapter lists them for the editor.
The product documentation describes Terraform as a declarative tool (139, HashiCorp, n.d.). Three facts from it matter to the platform. State stores the bindings between remote objects and declared resource instances, and Terraform refreshes it against real infrastructure before an operation (140, HashiCorp, n.d.). The plan command has a refresh-only mode that updates state to match changes made outside Terraform (141, HashiCorp, n.d.). And state can hold secrets, so it is treated as sensitive data (142, HashiCorp, n.d.). AI Operations (Chapter 8) draws the consequence for an operator: because Terraform runs only when a person or a pipeline runs it, nothing compares between runs, and state is not the declaration, so adopting a manual change still needs a commit. AI Platform and Security (Chapter 13) uses Terraform to provision inference node pools, and HCP Terraform (the managed service, which Architecture as Code lists for remote state, policy enforcement and collaboration) documents policy enforcement as one of its features (157, HashiCorp, n.d.).
Primary topics explored
- Infrastructure as code
- Container and service-mesh platforms
- MLOps and model serving
- Retrieval and data tools
- Gateways
- Platform engineering and team design
About Tools
Tools is a companion to The Transformed Architecture. It collects the tools that Books 1 to 10 describe in one reference, organised by what the practitioner is doing: artefacts (templates, manifests, records), own tools, third-party tools and standards, and methods. Each entry says what a tool is for, when to use it, what it needs and produces, and where the book that defines it explains the reasoning. The book covers choosing, adopting and retiring tools, architecture and delivery, governing AI, securing and testing, operating, agents and autonomy, and people, organisation and society, for European enterprises and public authorities. It comes with a template library, an inventory, three web tools and the Toolbox Maturity Method.
It builds on the conclusions of Architecture as Code, AI Governance, AI Platform and Security, AI Red Team, AI Threat, The Transformed Security Architect, AI Boss, AI Blue, AI Purple and AI Operations.
Architects and security architects, CIOs and CISOs, platform and operations leads, heads of governance, risk, compliance and third-party risk, AI governance and AI platform teams, red, blue and purple team leads, boards and management bodies, procurement and vendor managers, supervisors and auditors, works councils and unions, data protection officers, and public-sector leaders.
Gunnar Nordqvist
Conceived, directed and published the books of The Transformed Architecture.
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Chapter 6: Platform and Infrastructure Tools in Tools gives the detailed explanations, practical examples and implementation patterns behind this summary.
This whitepaper belongs to “Architecture and Delivery” and is one of 29 drawn from the manuscript.