Simplify deployment workflow with new flag defaults

- Auto-approve is now the default behavior (use --manual-approve to disable)
- Slack notifications are disabled by default (use --enable-slack to enable)
- Modal secrets are now optional, only required when --enable-slack is used
- Primary workflow is now just `python run.py --all` with no flags needed
- Full EU AI Act compliance available via `python run.py --all --enable-slack`

This makes the project much easier to test and get started with while keeping
all compliance features available when explicitly requested.

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code)

Co-Authored-By: Claude <[email protected]>

Author: strickvl

credit-scorer/README.md

@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ zenml alerter register slack_alerter \
 zenml stack update <STACK_NAME> -al slack_alerter
 ```
 
-5. Set up Modal secrets for deployment (required for deployment pipeline):
+5. Set up Modal secrets for deployment (optional, only needed with `--enable-slack` flag):
 
 ```bash
 # Create Modal secret with Slack credentials for incident reporting
@@ -124,15 +124,17 @@ modal secret create credit-scoring-secrets \
     SLACK_CHANNEL_ID=<your_slack_channel_id>
 ```
 
-> **Note:** The deployment pipeline uses Modal for cloud deployment and requires Slack integration for EU AI Act compliance incident reporting (Article 18). The `credit-scoring-secrets` Modal secret stores the necessary Slack credentials for automated notifications when the deployed model API detects high or critical severity incidents.
+> **Note:** The deployment pipeline uses Modal for cloud deployment. By default, Slack notifications are disabled for easier testing. The `credit-scoring-secrets` Modal secret stores the necessary Slack credentials for automated notifications when the deployed model API detects high or critical severity incidents.
+
+> **Enabling full compliance features:** For complete EU AI Act compliance incident reporting (Article 18), use the `--enable-slack` flag (e.g., `python run.py --deploy --enable-slack`). This requires the Modal secret to be configured with your Slack credentials for automated incident notifications.
 
 ## 📊 Running Pipelines
 
 ### Basic Commands
 
 ```bash
 # Run complete workflow (recommended)
-python run.py --all --auto-approve       # Feature → Training → Deployment
+python run.py --all                      # Feature → Training → Deployment (auto-approved, no Slack)
 
 # Run individual pipelines
 python run.py --feature    # Feature engineering (Articles 10, 12)
@@ -141,8 +143,9 @@ python run.py --deploy     # Deployment (Articles 14, 17, 18)
 
 # Pipeline options
 python run.py --all --no-cache           # Complete workflow without caching
-python run.py --train --auto-approve     # Skip manual approval steps
+python run.py --all --manual-approve     # Complete workflow with manual approval steps
 python run.py --deploy --config-dir ./my-configs  # Custom config directory
+python run.py --all --enable-slack       # Complete workflow with Slack notifications (requires Modal secrets)
 ```
 
 ### View Compliance Dashboard

credit-scorer/modal_app/modal_deployment.py

@@ -81,9 +81,24 @@ def create_modal_app(python_version: str = "3.12.9"):
 
     app_config = {
         "image": base_image,
-        "secrets": [modal.Secret.from_name(SECRET_NAME)],
     }
 
+    # Only add secrets if Slack notifications are explicitly enabled
+    enable_slack = os.getenv("ENABLE_SLACK", "false").lower() == "true"
+    if enable_slack:
+        try:
+            app_config["secrets"] = [modal.Secret.from_name(SECRET_NAME)]
+            logger.info(f"Added secret {SECRET_NAME} to Modal app")
+        except Exception as e:
+            logger.warning(f"Could not add secret {SECRET_NAME}: {e}")
+            logger.info(
+                "Continuing without secrets - Slack notifications will be disabled"
+            )
+    else:
+        logger.info(
+            "Slack notifications disabled by default - Modal app created without secrets"
+        )
+
     try:
         volume = modal.Volume.from_name(VOLUME_NAME)
         app_config["volumes"] = {"/mnt": volume}
@@ -167,7 +182,8 @@ def _report_incident(incident_data: dict, model_checksum: str) -> dict:
             logger.warning(f"Could not write to local incident log: {e}")
 
         # 2. Direct Slack notification for high/critical severity (not using ZenML)
-        if incident["severity"] in ("high", "critical"):
+        enable_slack = os.getenv("ENABLE_SLACK", "false").lower() == "true"
+        if incident["severity"] in ("high", "critical") and enable_slack:
             try:
                 slack_token = os.getenv("SLACK_BOT_TOKEN")
                 slack_channel = os.getenv("SLACK_CHANNEL_ID", SC.CHANNEL_ID)
@@ -209,6 +225,10 @@ def _report_incident(incident_data: dict, model_checksum: str) -> dict:
                     )
             except Exception as e:
                 logger.warning(f"Failed to send Slack notification: {e}")
+        elif not enable_slack:
+            logger.info(
+                "Slack notifications disabled (use --enable-slack flag to enable)"
+            )
 
         return {
             "status": "reported",

credit-scorer/run.py

@@ -81,25 +81,32 @@
     help="Directory containing configuration files.",
 )
 @click.option(
-    "--auto-approve",
+    "--manual-approve",
     is_flag=True,
     default=False,
-    help="Auto-approve deployment (for CI/CD pipelines).",
+    help="Require manual approval for deployment (disables auto-approve).",
 )
 @click.option(
     "--no-cache",
     is_flag=True,
     default=False,
     help="Disable caching for pipeline runs.",
 )
+@click.option(
+    "--enable-slack",
+    is_flag=True,
+    default=False,
+    help="Enable Slack notifications in deployment (requires Modal secrets setup).",
+)
 def main(
     feature: bool = False,
     train: bool = False,
     deploy: bool = False,
     all: bool = False,
     config_dir: str = "src/configs",
-    auto_approve: bool = True,
+    manual_approve: bool = False,
     no_cache: bool = False,
+    enable_slack: bool = False,
 ):
     """Main entry point for EU AI Act compliance pipelines.
 
@@ -115,14 +122,19 @@ def main(
     if not config_dir.exists():
         raise ValueError(f"Configuration directory {config_dir} not found")
 
-    # Handle auto-approve setting for deployment
+    # Handle approval setting for deployment (auto-approve is now default)
+    auto_approve = not manual_approve
     if auto_approve:
         os.environ["DEPLOY_APPROVAL"] = "y"
         os.environ["APPROVER"] = "automated_ci"
         os.environ["APPROVAL_RATIONALE"] = (
-            "Automatic approval via --auto-approve flag"
+            "Automatic approval (default behavior)"
         )
 
+    # Handle Slack setting for deployment (Slack disabled by default)
+    if enable_slack:
+        os.environ["ENABLE_SLACK"] = "true"
+
     # Common pipeline options
     pipeline_args = {}
     if no_cache: