move flow diagram to root README and simplify

Replace the dark-themed top-down Mermaid diagram with a clean left-to-right
pipeline view using GitHub's native theme. Remove clutter (skip branches,
disconnected cleanup subgraph). Template README links back to root.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: AlexF4Dev

README.md

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ gh workflow run "CI: Deploy (Demo)"
 ## Testing
 
 ```bash
-# Local smoke test (31 checks)
+# Local smoke test (32 checks)
 ./test/smoke.sh
 
 # Requires: yq, shellcheck (gracefully skips if missing)
@@ -49,9 +49,29 @@ CI runs automatically on push to main and PRs with 5 parallel validation jobs.
 
 ## How It Works
 
-1. **Trigger** — Polls GHCR on a schedule for the latest semver image tags
-2. **PR Creation** — Compares with current `.env` file, creates a PR if versions differ
-3. **Deployment** — Merging the PR triggers deployment to the target server
+```mermaid
+flowchart LR
+    subgraph trigger ["1. Trigger (ci-pr-trigger)"]
+        A["Cron schedule"] --> B["Query GHCR API\n+ semver filter"]
+        B --> C{"New tags?"}
+    end
+
+    subgraph pr ["2. PR Creation (ci-create-release-pr)"]
+        D["Read current\ntags from .env"] --> E{"Changed?"}
+        E -- Yes --> F["Update .env\nvia sed"]
+        F --> G["Create PR +\nauto-merge"]
+    end
+
+    subgraph deploy ["3. Deployment"]
+        H["PR merges"] --> I["paths filter"]
+        I -- Match --> J["Copy files\nto server"]
+        J --> K["docker compose\nup"]
+    end
+
+    C -- Yes --> D
+    G --> H
+    K --> L["Slack notify"]
+```
 
 Three deployment strategies: EC2/AWS, SSH, or self-hosted runner.
 

templates/gitops-ci/README.md

@@ -4,47 +4,7 @@ Reusable GitHub Actions template for automated GitOps deployments. Polls GHCR fo
 
 ## How it works
 
-```mermaid
-flowchart TD
-    subgraph trigger ["ci-pr-trigger.yaml"]
-        A["⏱ Cron (every 5 min)"] --> B["Query GHCR API"]
-        B --> B1["ghcr-latest-tag action\n(paginate + semver filter)"]
-        B1 --> C{New tags\nfound?}
-        C -- No --> D["Skip"]
-    end
-
-    subgraph pr ["ci-create-release-pr.yaml"]
-        C -- Yes --> E["Read current tags\nfrom .env"]
-        E --> F{"Tags\nchanged?"}
-        F -- No --> G["Skip"]
-        F -- Yes --> H["Update .env\nwith sed"]
-        H --> I["Create PR\n(peter-evans/create-pull-request)"]
-        I --> J["Enable auto-merge\n(retry w/ 15 min timeout)"]
-    end
-
-    subgraph deploy ["ci-deployment.yaml"]
-        J --> K["PR merges to\ndeploy branch"]
-        K --> L{"Paths filter\nprojects/app/**"}
-        L -- No match --> M["Skip"]
-        L -- Match --> N["Copy files to server\n(SSH / rsync / local)"]
-        N --> O["docker compose\npull / down / up"]
-        O --> P["Extract deployed\nversions"]
-    end
-
-    subgraph notify ["Notifications"]
-        P --> Q["Slack notification\nwith versions + status"]
-    end
-
-    subgraph cleanup ["Cleanup (parallel)"]
-        A --> R["Delete old successful\nscheduled runs"]
-    end
-
-    style trigger fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#e94560,color:#eee
-    style pr fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#0f3460,color:#eee
-    style deploy fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#16213e,color:#eee
-    style notify fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#533483,color:#eee
-    style cleanup fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#4a4a4a,color:#eee
-```
+See the [flow diagram](../../README.md#how-it-works) in the root README.
 
 1. **Trigger** (`ci-pr-trigger.yaml`) — Runs on schedule, queries GHCR for the latest semver image tags using the custom composite action
 2. **PR Creation** (`ci-create-release-pr.yaml`) — Compares discovered tags with current `.env` file. Creates a PR only if versions differ