Event-driven Salt · AI uplift · Government & Enterprise

Hard problems deserve simple solutions.

We build event-driven Salt the way it's meant to work. We deliver the platform, hand it back, and leave your team able to ship faster than they did before we arrived.

Let's talk → Our approach ↓

Start here · Curriculum

Salt Academy.

The whole curriculum on one page. Five courses, two reference companions, one advanced track. The course we wish we had.

8 guides
127 modules
Open the Academy →

What is Salt?

Configuration management on the surface. Event-driven everywhere underneath.

Configuration management

Declare your fleet's desired state in YAML. Salt enforces it across thousands of nodes — Linux, Windows, anywhere there's a minion. One source of truth, one apply, every host converges.

saltproject.io ↗

Event-driven by design

Every minion publishes to a real-time event bus. Reactors fire orchestration on those events without polling or cron loops. Most people treat Salt as a config-push tool and miss the reactive layer underneath; that's usually where the leverage is.

Event bus docs ↗

Free or enterprise

Salt Project is open source, free, fully featured. VCF Salt (Broadcom's commercial build, formerly SaltStack Config) wraps it with RaaS, a UI, and enterprise security/compliance for regulated environments. Same engine, same patterns.

VCF Salt on Broadcom ↗

What we do

One stack. Done properly. From open source to enterprise VMware integration.

Blue/Green Salt, Git-Driven

Zero-downtime · GitOps · Stack-level blue/green

Most Salt deployments run a single master with no fallback. We build the stack to fail over: two 3-server stacks (blue and green) pulling from the same Git, promoted through develop, staging, and production by a CI pipeline. Cut over by flipping a DNS CNAME; minions usually don't notice. If something breaks, we rebuild the stack from Git rather than restoring a backup.

Git as source of truth States, pillar, reactor, orchestration — all version controlled. Changes go through PRs, deploys land via merge, and the audit trail comes for free.
Stack-level failover Two whole 3-server stacks running the same Git source. Promote on green, validate, flip the CNAME. Minions don't notice the swap. (Each stack has two masters internally for in-stack HA — single-server failure doesn't even register.)
Pipeline-driven promotion Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or GitLab — whichever you already run. We wire SSH-driven gitpull services into your branches so every push is a controlled deploy.
Reactor + orchestration Event bus tied into reactor SLS so highstate, key acceptance, and post-deploy validation run automatically. No more "did the change apply?"

Salt — Open Source

Open Source · Self-Hosted

Salt Project upstream, properly architected. Master/minion topology, pillar separation, environment splits, RBAC via external auth. Same enterprise patterns, no licence fees.

Salt — VMware Edition

VCF Salt

VCF Salt (formerly SaltStack Config / SSC), RaaS, and full VCF integration. We uplift legacy installs, scope POCs, and harden master + RaaS for production.

Team uplift

Training · Modern workflows · AI tooling

We hand the platform back with the team trained to run it. Claude Code, Copilot, and Cursor wired into VSCode, plus the Git flow and review patterns that compound. By handover, your engineers usually ship faster than they did before we arrived.

How we work

Three phases. No surprises.

01

Assess

Your existing Salt (or no Salt). Master topology, git hygiene, pillar layout, the things people are scared to touch. We map it before we change it.

02

Deploy

Blue/green stacks, git-driven gitpull, reactor + orchestration wired in. Open source or VCF Salt — same pattern, same discipline.

03

Uplift

We hand it back with the team trained, AI in the pipeline writing states alongside them, and runbooks for the change patterns that matter.

We build. We train. You run.

Modern AI has changed how engineering teams ship. Your team should be using it too.

Team Uplift — Git, AI, Vibecoding

Claude Code · GitHub Copilot · Cursor · VSCode

We don't stop at the infrastructure. The same engagement reshapes how the team works day to day: a Git flow they actually use, AI tooling wired into their editors, and review patterns that hold up over time. By the end of the engagement, the team can automate new work in days and rebuild from Git when something breaks. They don't need us back.

Git flow, done right Branch strategy that fits your team. Pull requests with intent. GitOps-style promotion from develop to staging to prod. Every change a commit. Every commit reviewable. Every deploy a merge.
Vibecoding with AI Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor wired into VSCode. Your engineers stop typing boilerplate states and start reviewing diffs. Productivity lifts on day one.
Version control as the source of truth Every state, every pillar, every reactor lives in git. Audit trail comes for free. Restore is git checkout. There's no "what changed?" — git already knows.
High-performance handover Your team automates new work in days, not quarters. Simple by default, restorable in minutes, with no ongoing dependence on us.

The Saltify thesis

The hard part isn't building a complex system. The hard part is making it simple.

Anyone can solve a complex problem with a complex solution. The rare and harder thing, and what we build, is a simple solution to a hard problem.

Stop upgrading Salt in place.

There's a simpler way. It's also safer.

The default approach

In-place upgrade

  • Database migration runs against your live master
  • Multi-hour change window with the fleet locked out
  • Rollback means restore-from-backup — and pray
  • One failed state and the whole upgrade is in limbo
  • Audit trail is whatever someone screenshotted

The Saltify pattern

Blue/green cutover

  • Stand up a new stack alongside the old
  • Mirror the master keys (and GPG) — green presents the same identity, minions don't notice the switch
  • Test the new stack under real load before cutover
  • Flip the CNAME (or LB target) when you're happy
  • If something breaks: rebuild, don't restore

The curriculum · in order

Step 1 · Install

VCF Salt — install guide.

The 3-server architecture we run in production. Eleven install steps. Blue/green ready. Never roll back a database again.

3 servers
11 steps
10min rebuild
Read the install guide →

Step 2 · Use it

Your first Salt state.

From hello-world to pillar to Git. Windows + Linux side by side. The rebuild-from-Git pattern, applied to your day-one workflow.

5 first states
11 real-world
Git ready
Read the tutorial →

Step 3 · Master states

Salt states, the parts you'll actually use.

The 6 daily state modules, the requisite system, 4 real production patterns, 6 anti-patterns. Without the spec sheet.

6 modules
4 requisites
4 real patterns
Read the states guide →

Step 4 · Windows

Salt on Windows. The practical bits.

Install the minion, learn the 6 quirks Salt has on Windows, manage software fleet-wide with winrepo.

5 install steps
6 quirks
winrepo deep dive
Read the Windows guide →

Step 5 · Salt + AI

Salt + AI — patterns that actually work.

AI writes plausible Salt YAML. Sometimes it runs. The patterns that actually work — plus the failure modes nobody warns you about.

7 sections
MCP setup
5 anti-patterns
Read Salt + AI →

Advanced · AI Tooling

The AI toolchain. Installed, signed in, working.

VSCode, the SaltStack extension, Copilot Chat, Claude in Chrome, Claude Code (IDE + terminal). Install commands lifted from official docs.

6 tools
25min read
SALT 501
Read AI Tooling →

References · for lookup, not reading in order

Reference · Cheat Sheet

Salt Cheat Sheet.

60-ish commands organised by category. Vibe checks, keys, targeting, states, debug, jobs, network. Copy-paste ready.

60+ commands
8 categories
Cmd+D worthy
Read the cheat sheet →

Reference · State Modules

Every Salt state module. Grouped by what they do.

All 127 Salt master state modules, regrouped into 9 functional categories with usage examples. Search by what you're trying to do.

127 modules
9 categories
83 w/ examples
Browse all 127 →

Salt in the wild

Live from upstream — releases as they ship, blog posts as they drop.

From the blog · saltproject.io

Releases · saltstack/salt · stable only

Want to work together?

We're a small team and we keep it that way. If your Salt is fragile, manual, or about to be — reach out.

[email protected]