Essential Deliverable 2 of 4

Technical & Quality Strategy

This deliverable defines the technical decisions, quality standards, and deployment infrastructure that will carry your product from the first commit to production.

1. Tech Stack Decision Matrix

The tech stack decision matrix documents which technologies were chosen and why. It gives stakeholders clear rationale and prevents re-evaluation of settled decisions.

CategoryCandidatesSelection Rationale
Frontend
Next.js 14React 18Tailwind CSS
SSR, SEO, and strong typing
Backend
NestJSExpress.jsFastAPI
Type-safe APIs, modular architecture
Database
PostgreSQLMongoDB
ACID compliance, complex queries
Caching
RedisMemcached
Sub-millisecond reads, session storage
Search
ElasticsearchAlgolia
Full-text search, faceted filtering

Pro Tip: Also document what was not chosen and why. This prevents future team members from re-opening the same debates.

2. QA Test Cases & Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria define conditions that must be met for a feature to be considered "done." Test cases operationalize these into reproducible steps.

Testing Pyramid

E2E Tests

Cypress, Playwright — full user flows

10%

Integration Tests

API endpoint contracts, service boundaries

20%

Unit Tests

Jest, Vitest — individual functions

70%

Acceptance Criteria Format

// Given-When-Then format

GIVEN a registered user is on the login page

WHEN they enter a valid email + password

THEN they are redirected to /dashboard

AND a session cookie is set

3. DevOps & Deployment Pipeline

A well-designed deployment pipeline automates the path from commit to production with guardrails at every stage.

CI/CD Pipeline Stages

Code Push
→
Lint & Format
→
Unit Tests
→
Build
→
Integration
→
Deploy Staging
→
Deploy Prod

Containerization

  • •Docker for consistency
  • •Docker Compose
  • •Kubernetes (K8s)

Cloud Infrastructure

  • •AWS / GCP / Azure
  • •Vercel / Railway
  • •Terraform (IaC)

Environments

  • •Development (local)
  • •Staging (mirror)
  • •Production (live)

4. Security & Compliance

Security must be built in from day one. This section outlines the security posture, authentication protocols, and compliance standards.

Authentication & Authorization

OAuth 2.0 / JWT for stateless sessions, RBAC for permissions.

Data Privacy & Encryption

AES-256 for data at rest, TLS 1.3 for data in transit.

Vulnerability Management

Automated SAST/DAST scanning, dependencies auditing.

5. System Architecture & Data Flow

High-level visualization of how the frontend, backend, and external services communicate.

Client Layer

Next.js React Frontend, Mobile Apps

API Gateway & Load Balancer

Nginx / AWS ALB — routes requests, rate limiting

Microservices / Backend

Auth Service, Core Business Logic, Services

Data Layer

Primary DB (PostgreSQL), Cache (Redis), Object Storage (S3)

← BackGTM & Business Plan