Value Statement

By providing a toggle within the MCE CR, users can enable or disable the CAPZ feature on their cluster, giving them more control and customization over their environment.

Definition of Done for Engineering Story Owner (Checklist)

• [x] CAPZ component toggle added to the MCE CR.
• [x] The CAPZ component can be toggled on or off via the MCE CR.
• [x] CAPZ components are properly cleaned up when disabled on the cluster.
• [x] CAPZ components are successfully deployed when enabled on the cluster.
• [x] The CAPZ deployment reaches a running state after being deployed on the cluster.

Development Complete

• The code is complete.
• Functionality is working.
• Any required downstream Docker file changes are made.

Tests Automated

• [ ] Unit/function tests have been automated and incorporated into the
  build.
• [ ] 100% automated unit/function test coverage for new or changed APIs.

Secure Design

• [ ] Security has been assessed and incorporated into your threat model.

Multidisciplinary Teams Readiness

• [ ] Create an informative documentation issue using the Customer

Portal Doc template that you can access from [The Playbook](

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YTqpZRH54Bnn4WJ2nZmjaCoiRtqmrc2w6DdQxe_yLZ8/edit#heading=h.9fvyr2rdriby),

and ensure doc acceptance criteria is met.

• Call out this sentence as it's own action:

• [ ] Link the development issue to the doc issue.

Support Readiness

• [ ] The must-gather script has been updated.

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QE Hand Off Template (fill out when moving to Review) 1/19/26:

Summary of the Work:
What was implemented or fixed? Include a brief description of the problem (if applicable) and how it was addressed.
e.g., "Updated the UI to show validation errors for the form. The previous implementation did not surface backend validation issues."

• Integrated the CAPZ component into MCE 2.11, enabling CAPZ to be deployed on the cluster alongside the CAPI component.

Key Areas to Verify:

1. What functionality should QE focus on? List what was tested or what is most important to validate.
2. Ensure the new validation messages appear for required fields
3. Confirm the workflow still completes as expected after validation fixes
4. Any edge cases or high-risk areas touched by the change

• The verification should confirm that the component can be installed on the cluster and reach a running state. The cluster must also be able to deploy or uninstall any manifests related to the CAPZ component when it is disabled. By default, the component should be set to false when creating MCE.

Fix or Feature Availability:
When will this be available in a build?
Code merged on: 2026-01-16
Expected downstream build tag (if known): MCE - 2.11.0-DOWNSTREAM-2026-01-18-20-11-54
(Optional) Related PR(s): https://github.com/stolostron/backplane-operator/pull/2472 & https://github.com/stolostron/backplane-operator/pull/2532