# AWS learning path — phase exit criteria (July 2026)

Companion to the 6-phase field path. Exit a phase only when the criteria are true — not when a course is “100% complete.”

| Phase         | Exit criteria (all required)                                                                 |
| ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 1 Foundations | SSH/`curl -v` comfort; Git rebase on a feature branch; can explain TCP vs HTTP failure modes |
| 2 Core AWS    | IAM least-privilege user + S3 + EC2 or Lambda + CloudWatch without copy-paste                |
| 3 Projects    | ≥1 public app on **your** account + domain; 5 project stubs documented                       |
| 4 DevOps      | `git push` deploys via Actions; Terraform (or CDK) owns the stack                            |
| 5 Architect   | Written Well-Architected notes on **your** project (trade-offs, not slogans)                 |
| 6 Cert        | One Associate (usually SAA) **after** a shipped project; skip CLF unless employer reimburses |

## Explicit skips

- Cloud Practitioner (CLF) as a learning goal
- SAP before ~2 years production AWS
- “AWS in 30 days” dumps

## One-week proof

S3 + CloudFront + ACM on your domain, GitHub Actions on `main`, ~\$0.50/month — raw five-resource stack, not Amplify tutorial.