Golden Paths in Platform Engineering: Your Team's Fast Track to Faster Deployments

Tired of endless troubleshooting and unclear deployment processes? Discover how adopting golden paths in platform engineering can revolutionize your development workflow. Learn how internal developer platforms leverage golden paths, and explore real-world examples like Netflix's Wall-E to optimize your software delivery pipeline.

What Are Golden Paths? Ditch the Chaos, Embrace Clarity

Imagine a world where deploying a new service isn't a confusing maze of undocumented processes. That's the promise of golden paths.

Golden paths are your organization’s opinionated guide to building, deploying, securing, and maintaining software. Think of them as guided tutorials that help developers follow company best practices.
They provide clear, documented processes, eliminating the need to constantly ask colleagues for help—freeing up DevOps and platform engineers from answering the same questions repeatedly.
Popularized by companies like Spotify (Golden Path) and Netflix (Paved Road), they are now a cornerstone of platform engineering, ensuring consistent and efficient software delivery.

Why Implement Golden Paths? Transform Your workflow

Golden paths provide many compelling benefits for individual developers and large organizations.

Reduced Cognitive Overload: Spin up new services without getting bogged down in infrastructure setup, monitoring configurations, security protocols, and compliance requirements.
Focus on Shipping, Not Tooling: Developers can concentrate on building features, instead of struggling with tools and processes.
Faster, Happier Developers: Golden paths minimize wasted time on boilerplate code and tribal knowledge, reducing errors and boosting productivity.
Scalable DevOps: Extend DevOps capabilities across multiple teams without creating bottlenecks, ensuring faster, safer, and more independent movement for everyone.

Golden paths aren't just a theoretical concept; they offer tangible improvements across the software development lifecycle.

What Does a Well-Designed Golden Path Look Like?

No two golden paths are identical, but good ones share important guiding principles.

Minimize Cognitive Load: Abstract unnecessary complexity and documentation for solving problems instead of wrestling with setups.
Opinionated and Clear: Offer a single, clear, and opinionated way to complete tasks, reflecting the organization's best practices, rather than overwhelming developers with options.
Fully Self-Serviceable: Everyone in the organization should easily discover and use the paths without needing manual provisioning or constant support.
Optional, Yet Encouraged: While adherence isn't mandatory, making best practices the most convenient option naturally encourages adoption.

Golden Paths and Internal Developer Platforms: a Powerful Combination

Golden paths are tutorials. Internal developer platforms (IDPs) are golden paths made tangible.

Netflix's Wall-E: Instead of a security checklist, their IDP automatically incorporates best security practices, making them the default.
Bake in Best Practices: A well-designed IDP integrates the golden path into the developer workflow, not as an afterthought.
Build or Buy?: You can purchase an off-the-shelf one, but this has the possibility of eventually being outgrown. You can also build one on your own which takes time and resources.

Unlock the potential of platform engineering by strategically implementing golden paths and internal developer platforms.

Golden Paths in Platform Engineering: Your Team's Fast Track to Faster Deployments

What Are Golden Paths? Ditch the Chaos, Embrace Clarity

Imagine a world where deploying a new service isn't a confusing maze of undocumented processes. That's the promise of golden paths.

Golden paths are your organization’s opinionated guide to building, deploying, securing, and maintaining software. Think of them as guided tutorials that help developers follow company best practices.

They provide clear, documented processes, eliminating the need to constantly ask colleagues for help—freeing up DevOps and platform engineers from answering the same questions repeatedly.

Popularized by companies like Spotify (Golden Path) and Netflix (Paved Road), they are now a cornerstone of platform engineering, ensuring consistent and efficient software delivery.

Why Implement Golden Paths? Transform Your workflow

Golden paths provide many compelling benefits for individual developers and large organizations.

Reduced Cognitive Overload: Spin up new services without getting bogged down in infrastructure setup, monitoring configurations, security protocols, and compliance requirements.

Focus on Shipping, Not Tooling: Developers can concentrate on building features, instead of struggling with tools and processes.

Faster, Happier Developers: Golden paths minimize wasted time on boilerplate code and tribal knowledge, reducing errors and boosting productivity.

Scalable DevOps: Extend DevOps capabilities across multiple teams without creating bottlenecks, ensuring faster, safer, and more independent movement for everyone.

Golden paths aren't just a theoretical concept; they offer tangible improvements across the software development lifecycle.

What Does a Well-Designed Golden Path Look Like?

No two golden paths are identical, but good ones share important guiding principles.

Minimize Cognitive Load: Abstract unnecessary complexity and documentation for solving problems instead of wrestling with setups.

Opinionated and Clear: Offer a single, clear, and opinionated way to complete tasks, reflecting the organization's best practices, rather than overwhelming developers with options.

Fully Self-Serviceable: Everyone in the organization should easily discover and use the paths without needing manual provisioning or constant support.

Optional, Yet Encouraged: While adherence isn't mandatory, making best practices the most convenient option naturally encourages adoption.

Golden Paths and Internal Developer Platforms: a Powerful Combination

Golden paths are tutorials. Internal developer platforms (IDPs) are golden paths made tangible.

Netflix's Wall-E: Instead of a security checklist, their IDP automatically incorporates best security practices, making them the default.

Bake in Best Practices: A well-designed IDP integrates the golden path into the developer workflow, not as an afterthought.

Build or Buy?: You can purchase an off-the-shelf one, but this has the possibility of eventually being outgrown. You can also build one on your own which takes time and resources.

Unlock the potential of platform engineering by strategically implementing golden paths and internal developer platforms.