guidance: keep cloud Linux builds and AWS deployments in GitHub

[gaelic-ghost]

Problem

Cloud-server deployment guidance must not instruct or permit constrained developer Macs to build Linux deployment artifacts locally when the repository's deployment workflow belongs in GitHub Actions.

For TokenBrokerCloud, local work should run natively on macOS and use already-installed Homebrew services. AWS staging/live and production builds and deployments must run through GitHub. A local Colima-based Amazon Linux ARM64 packaging attempt was therefore the wrong workflow even though the target artifact itself needed Linux.

This distinction should be durable and explicit: deployment parity does not justify consuming local CPU, RAM, or disk to reproduce a cloud build environment.

Requested guidance

Refine the applicable cloud deployment, server-side Swift/Lambda, GitHub workflow, and repository guidance so agents:

• use native host builds, tests, and already-installed native services for local development;
• never build Linux cloud-server artifacts on the developer Mac when the project declares GitHub Actions as its deployment boundary;
• build every staging/live and production AWS artifact in GitHub Actions;
• deploy to AWS only from the reviewed GitHub workflow, with the repository's required environments, approvals, and credentials;
• keep local validation to platform-native unit/integration tests, static infrastructure validation, and contract checks that do not require a Linux VM;
• do not use Docker Desktop, Colima, Lima, cross-compilation, QEMU, or another local VM as an unofficial replacement for the GitHub deployment workflow;
• treat Apple Silicon versus x86_64/ARM64 Linux as a build-boundary concern owned by CI, not as a reason to enlarge local virtualization;
• surface a clear approval gate before changing the declared deployment boundary.

Acceptance criteria

• Relevant skills explicitly distinguish native local testing from GitHub-hosted cloud builds/deployments.
• A repository-declared GitHub-only deployment rule overrides generic local Docker/SAM packaging recommendations.
• Examples show local macOS tests feeding a GitHub Actions Linux build and AWS deployment.
• Guidance rejects local Linux VM creation for live/prod cloud packaging when GitHub Actions owns that lifecycle.
• Deployment verification accurately reports that local tests are not a live AWS deployment.