Skip to main content

Platform Engineering Technical Community Group

The Platform Engineering Technical Community Group (TCG) focuses on platform engineering practices, tools, and patterns that enable development teams to self-service their infrastructure needs while maintaining consistency, security, and governance across the organization.

Mission​

The Platform Engineering TCG serves as a community rallying point for discussing, sharing knowledge, and coordinating initiatives related to building and operating internal developer platforms. We aim to help organizations deliver better developer experiences while maintaining operational excellence.

Focus Areas​

Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs)​

Exploring the design, implementation, and operation of internal platforms:

  • Platform Architecture: Designing platforms that balance flexibility and standardization
  • Service Catalogs: Creating discoverable, self-service capabilities
  • Platform APIs: Designing intuitive interfaces for platform services
  • Multi-Tenancy: Supporting multiple teams and workloads safely

Golden Paths​

Establishing and maintaining preferred patterns:

  • Paved Roads: Creating recommended paths that are easy to follow
  • Template Libraries: Reusable templates for common use cases
  • Best Practices: Documenting and sharing proven patterns
  • Guardrails: Balancing freedom with necessary constraints

Self-Service Capabilities​

Enabling developer autonomy through platform features:

  • Environment Provisioning: On-demand creation of development, test, and production environments
  • CI/CD Integration: Streamlined build, test, and deployment pipelines
  • Service Dependencies: Easy provisioning of databases, caches, message queues, etc.
  • Observability Tools: Built-in monitoring, logging, and tracing

Platform as a Product​

Treating internal platforms as products:

  • Product Thinking: Applying product management principles to platforms
  • User Research: Understanding developer needs and pain points
  • Metrics and KPIs: Measuring platform adoption and effectiveness
  • Feedback Loops: Continuous improvement based on user input
  • Platform Teams: Organizing and operating platform teams effectively

Developer Experience​

Optimizing the experience for platform users:

  • Portal Interfaces: User-friendly web portals for platform interaction
  • CLI Tools: Command-line interfaces for developer workflows
  • Documentation: Clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date docs
  • Onboarding: Helping new teams adopt the platform quickly
  • Support Models: Providing help and resolving issues effectively

Platform Engineering Practices​

Operational aspects of running platforms:

  • GitOps: Managing platform configuration through Git
  • Infrastructure as Code: Declarative infrastructure management
  • Policy as Code: Automated policy enforcement
  • Security Integration: Baking security into platform workflows
  • Cost Management: Visibility and control over platform costs

Getting Involved​

The Platform Engineering TCG welcomes participation from anyone building or using internal developer platforms:

Join the Community​

  • CNCF Community Groups: Find us on community.cncf.io
  • CNCF Slack: Join slack.cncf.io and look for platform engineering channels
  • Meetings: Check community.cncf.io for meeting schedules and join links

Contribute​

  • Share Your Platform: Present your platform architecture and lessons learned
  • Case Studies: Document real-world platform engineering examples
  • Participate in Initiatives: Help create guides, reference architectures, or maturity models
  • Ask Questions: Learn from others facing similar challenges
  • Provide Feedback: Shape the direction of platform engineering practices

Topics for Discussion​

Areas where community input is valuable:

  • Platform team structures and staffing models
  • Technology choices for platform components (Backstage, Crossplane, Kratix, etc.)
  • Measuring platform ROI and developer productivity
  • Balancing standardization with team autonomy
  • Legacy application migration to platforms
  • Platform federation across multiple clouds
  • Integration patterns with existing tools and processes

Organizers​

Technical Community Groups are led by community organizers who facilitate meetings, coordinate activities, and ensure the group delivers value to participants.

To become an organizer or learn more about current organizers, check the group's page on community.cncf.io or reach out via the CNCF Slack.

Use Cases​

Platform engineering addresses various organizational needs:

Startup Scaling​

  • Establishing patterns as the organization grows
  • Avoiding technical debt from ad-hoc solutions
  • Enabling teams to move fast with confidence

Enterprise Modernization​

  • Standardizing across diverse tech stacks
  • Improving developer productivity
  • Reducing operational complexity

Multi-Cloud Management​

  • Providing consistent experience across clouds
  • Managing complexity of hybrid environments
  • Avoiding cloud vendor lock-in

Compliance and Governance​

  • Enforcing security policies automatically
  • Maintaining audit trails
  • Meeting regulatory requirements

Resources​

CNCF Resources​

External Resources​

Several CNCF projects are commonly used in platform engineering:

  • Backstage: Developer portals and service catalogs
  • Crossplane: Infrastructure provisioning and composition
  • Argo CD: GitOps continuous delivery
  • Flux: GitOps toolkit for Kubernetes
  • Kubernetes: Container orchestration foundation
  • Helm: Package management for Kubernetes

Evolution and Future​

As a Technical Community Group, the Platform Engineering TCG may evolve based on community needs:

  • Current State: Discussion and knowledge-sharing forum
  • Near Term: Deliver initiatives like maturity models, best practices guides, or reference architectures
  • Long Term: Potentially evolve into a TAG or subproject if sustained value and formal oversight is needed

The community drives the direction and pace of this evolution.

Contact​

For questions or to get involved:

Code of Conduct​

All participants in the Platform Engineering TCG must adhere to the CNCF Code of Conduct. We are committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all community members.