Puppet Health Check

See the whole Puppet system, not only the lint output

A useful health check connects code, data, infrastructure, reports, deployment workflow, and operating practice. A clean syntax check does not reveal slow catalog compilation, persistent corrective changes, fragile certificate handling, untested release paths, obsolete modules, or an upgrade blocked by custom Ruby code.

The review is performed interactively with your team. That makes the evidence understandable and turns the assessment itself into training rather than delivering an unexplained scorecard.

Review scope

The exact scope is agreed during an initial call and can include:

• Puppet and operating-system versions, lifecycle position, package sources, and upgrade constraints.
• Puppet Server topology, JVM and JRuby settings, logs, certificate infrastructure, and availability risks.
• PuppetDB health, PostgreSQL considerations, query behavior, report retention, and performance.
• Agent run reports: failures, skipped resources, recurring changes, no-op behavior, and run duration.
• Control-repository organization, roles and profiles, environment strategy, and deployment process.
• Module versions, dependency constraints, unsupported modules, custom code, and technical debt.
• Hiera hierarchy, lookup options, data ownership, duplication, secrets, and maintainability.
• Automated tests, linting, CI gates, deployment controls, and rollback paths.
• Catalog compilation performance, resource counts, dependency patterns, and scaling signals.
• Puppet 8, Puppet Core, Puppet Enterprise, or OpenVox readiness.

Static analysis is combined with runtime evidence. The goal is to separate theoretical issues from the conditions actually affecting reliability, security, and delivery speed.

How the health check works

1. A discovery call defines objectives, constraints, platform shape, and access boundaries.
2. Your team collects a bounded evidence set: sanitized configuration, reports, logs, metrics, and code where appropriate.
3. We review the platform together, following findings into the relevant components.
4. example42 consolidates the evidence into a report with severity, impact, and recommended action.
5. A final session reviews the findings, resolves questions, and agrees priorities.

The report focuses on decisions and remediation. It explains why a finding matters, how to verify it, and what a realistic improvement path looks like.

Useful before an upgrade or handover

A health check is particularly valuable before a major Puppet upgrade, an operating-system refresh, a change of support model, or the transfer of a platform to a new team. It identifies blockers while there is still time to test alternatives.

If the main objective is Puppet 8, start with the Puppet 7 to Puppet 8 migration guide and use the assessment to turn that general checklist into an environment-specific plan.