Okay so our front door entry is in a rectangular "pocket" under the roof 4.5 feet. The rectangular shape is 360 deg surrounded by stemwalls down 8ft and filled with 3in stone. However, we are using 14in BCI joists and the garage door is 15 in from the front of the first stemwall running along the front. This puts me at 18in from top of foundation to the top of the bottom plate the front door will sit on. My wife wants a big concrete pad for a landing with steps at the front, not at the door. So the concrete will have to sit up above the sill plate and about 10" up the rim joist. I was thinking to leave a 1" gap between the wall and the concrete. Also I am furring out the siding above the concrete so there will be a good distance between the edge of siding and the wall itself. If I flash the siding to the top of the concrete stoop, minimal water will get down there. Will this plan work ok?

I have a similar setup, except that the stoop is a treated wood frame with pavers in it. It looks nice without requiring any poured concrete.

Well, I already have a contract for concrete and its a 26 inch rise so doing it in pavers would likely be a lot more expensive. So your stoop is surrounded by treated on three sides?

It's set into the house, so the only edge that is visible is the stairs. And they have pavers for the treads. Basically it's a wood deck covered with pavers. Wood trim is visible, but one could completely hide all wood from view. IMO, stamped, colored concrete looks similar to pavers (if you really want poured concrete).

Driveway across the street is stamped colored concrete and the winter caused it to flake. Never.

mine is set into the house too. Brick on two sides, siding on back wall with door. I plan to put foam between the stoop and back wall isolating the rim joist there, to prevent dewppint/moisture on the rim. still unsure what to do against the brick, maybe just pour up to it. Wondering if here's a better idea.

Pour specification/ installation caused it to flake.

or road salt

So if I were to do stamped concrete what would the specification be? Around here everyone uses 4000PSI with fiber as an optional.