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Mission

The mission of the CNCF TAG Developer Experience (TAG: DevEx) is to improve the end-to-end experience for developers building, testing, deploying, and maintaining cloud native applications. We emphasize outcomes over dogma, focusing on unifying developers, platforms to drive modern software excellence, system resilience, and business value. We aim to provide guidance, foster collaboration, and support CNCF projects that enhance productivity, usability, user experience, and improve developer satisfaction within the cloud native ecosystem.

Scope

TAG: Developer Experience (DevEx) focuses on enhancing the end-to-end experience of developers building cloud native applications. Our scope encompasses key concerns across various areas, including microservices, databases, streaming and messaging systems, AI, API management, and developer programming languages and frameworks, in addition to traditional developer experience. We explore and guide on:

  • Engaging with CNCF project maintainers to improve the developer experience and advise on features with the good impact.
  • Cloud Native application excellence
  • Inner/outer loop best practices
  • Observability and debugging from a developer’s perspective
  • Usability, DevEx research, and DevEx metrics across CNCF projects
  • Developer Experience related to emerging technologies and practices, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Our work involves identifying gaps, promoting best practices, and supporting CNCF projects and communities to enhance the productivity and satisfaction of developers working with cloud native technologies. We aim to bridge tools, platforms, and practices to create a cohesive and frictionless developer experience across the cloud native ecosystem.

More specifically, we:

  • Provide guidance and thought leadership on improving developer workflows and experience in cloud native application development
  • Collaborate with TAG Security to improve the developer experience of integrating security considerations into the developer workflow
  • Collaborate with CNCF projects to surface and resolve developer experience challenges
  • Facilitate interoperability and standardization across developer tools in the CNCF ecosystem
  • Act as a bridge, empowering developers and project maintainers by improving the user experience through clear communication of feedback and specific technical guidance back to the projects

Out of Scope

  • Prescriptive mandates on tooling choices or project roadmaps
  • Evaluating or endorsing specific commercial developer tools outside of CNCF projects
  • Replacing or duplicating efforts by other TAGs unless explicitly partnered
  • Any end-user directed activities and initiatives

Goals

  • Develop shared vocabulary, metrics, and frameworks to evaluate DevEx
  • Provide a central forum within the CNCF for discussing developer experience
  • Help CNCF projects better understand and serve developer needs
  • Publish guidance and reference materials for effective developer workflows
  • Encourage cross-project collaboration to improve consistency and interoperability of tooling
  • In collaboration with other TAGs, integrate best practices into cloud-native development workflows to reduce friction and improve adoption
  • Reduce barriers to entry and help democratize access to cloud native development by promoting inclusive, accessible, and low-friction developer experiences

Non-Goals

  • Acting as a certification or compliance body for DevEx tooling
  • Becoming a support forum for individual developer issues

Subprojects & Initiatives

Potential subprojects or initiatives may be formed around specific themes such as:

These subprojects and initiatives will operate under the oversight of TAG: DevEx and will produce artifacts or recommendations relevant to their focus area.

Alignment with CNCF TOC

TAG: DevEx will actively coordinate with the CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) to ensure our efforts align and complement their work. We will also engage with other TAGs, subprojects, initiatives, and CNCF project maintainers to understand how developer experience can be integrated into existing CNCF initiatives.

Get Involved

Everyone is welcome to join TAG: DevEx. Our work is public and community-driven. To participate:

For more details, visit our GitHub repository and calendar of meetings.