review feedback

Reword and expand both the reasoning and the process documented.

Author: ConsoleCatzirl

sceptre/scipool/README.md

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ to build out the service catalog.
 # sceptre launch-stack prod <stack_name>
 ```
 
-The above should setup resources for the AWS account.  Once the infrastructure
+The above should setup resources for the AWS account. Once the infrastructure
 for the account has been setup you can access and view the account using the
 [AWS console](https://AWS-account-ID-or-alias.signin.aws.amazon.com/console).
 
@@ -42,32 +42,57 @@ execute the validations by running `pre-commit run --all-files`.
 Please install pre-commit, once installed the file validations will
 automatically run on every commit.
 
-### Functional Testing
-The process to test the functionality of an AMI and it's integration with our
-Service Catalog products is to first create a test AMI, upload a modified
-product template to S3, and create a new Service Catalog product in the
-scipool dev account to verify manually from https://sc-dev.sageit.org/
-
-The deploy pipelines for both our packer repos and our service catalog library
-will create artifacts for branches that begin with `test/` in the sandbox
-account, allowing anyone with write access to the packer repos to create test
-AMIs, and anyone with write access to service-catalog-library to upload test
-templates for service catalog to S3.
-
-1. Commit changes to the packer repo to update or modify the AMI on a branch
-   that starts with `test/`, and push directly to the origin repo.
-1. Manually create an EC2 instance in the `itsandbox` account from the test AMI
-   for any initial system validation, then terminate it.
+### Pre-Merge Integration Testing
+
+To validate the integration of AMI changes with Service Catalog products several
+resources need to be created in AWS including a test AMI, a test CFN template
+(uploaded to S3), and a test product in Service Catalog. Finally, the test
+product can be provisioned from https://sc-dev.sageit.org/ for user-acceptance
+testing of the changes to the AMI and/or CFN template.
+
+This process has been automated by using standard deploy pipelines on test
+branches. Automating the process improves test consistency and accuracy and
+reduces the impact of human error.
+
+Anyone with write access to the upstream repos can automate creating AMIs and
+uploading CFN templates to S3 by pushing `test/*` branches directly to the
+uptsream repo. For example, pushing a branch named `test/foo` directly to
+`Sage-Bionetworks-IT/packer-rstudio` will create an AMI named
+`packer-rstudio-test/foo` in `imagecentral`, and pushing a branch named
+`test/bar` directly to `Sage-Bionetworks/service-catalog-library` will upload
+the templates to `service-catalog-library/test/bar/` in the bootstrap bucket in
+`admincentral`.
+
+The standard PR development process is used to create a test product in Service
+Catalog in this `scipool` sceptre project, such as in [this PR](https://github.com/Sage-Bionetworks-IT/organizations-infra/pull/1109).
+
+The full process with automation is:
+
+1. Commit changes to the target packer repo to modify the AMI on a branch that
+   starts with `test/`, and push it directly to the upstream repo to create a
+   test AMI.
+   - Initial manual testing of the AMI can be performed by using it to boot an
+     EC2 instance.
 1. Commit changes to `service-catalog-library` on a branch that starts with
-   `test/` to update the desired template, and push directly to the origin repo.
-1. Create a pull request for `organizations-infra` to add a new Service Catalog
-   product to `scipool-dev` with 'test' in the name for the test template.
-1. Provision the test product from http://sc-dev.sageit.org to validate AMI
-   integration with the product template
+   `test/` to update the relevant template with the new AMI, and push directly
+   to the origin repo to upload the templates to S3.
+1. Create a pull request for `organizations-infra` to modify or add a template
+   in [/sceptre/scipool/config/develop/](./config/develop) to deploy a Service
+   Catalog test product in the `scipool-dev` account.
+1. Provision the test product from http://sc-dev.sageit.org to manually validate
+   AMI integration with the product template; and manually terminate when done.
 1. Create a pull request for the packer repo to modify the AMI.
 1. Create a pull request for `service-catalog-library` to reference the new AMI.
-1. Create a pull request for `organizations-infra` to remove the test product and
-   update the target product with the new template version.
+1. Create a pull request for `organizations-infra` to update the product templates
+   in the production accounts [scipool-prod](./config/prod), [bmgf-ki](./config/dmgf-ki),
+   and [strides](./config/strides).
+
+The list of active packer repos that are used by Service Catalog products:
+
+1. `Sage-Bionetworks-IT/packer-amazonlinux-docker`
+1. `Sage-Bionetworks-IT/packer-base-ubuntu-jammy`
+1. `Sage-Bionetworks-IT/packer-docker-server`
+1. `Sage-Bionetworks-IT/packer-winserver-2022`
 
 ## Issues
 * https://sagebionetworks.jira.com/projects/IT