Developer Self-Service and Golden Paths

By the end

What you'll build

• Design a golden path from repository creation to production and document it as a stated promise
• Convert a manual approval gate into an automated guard rail with a defined exception route
• Build a self-service request flow that is idempotent and fails with actionable messages
• Detect and close the gap between a published path and how services actually run
• Plan a path deprecation and migration for teams already using the old route
• Measure adherence to a paved road and the volume and reasons for exceptions

Curriculum

What's inside

6 modules · 30 lessons

1. 01

   What self-service really means

   5 lessons
   • Designing for the request a developer makes first thing on a Monday
   • Self-service compared with self-support
   • Time to first successful change as the guiding measure
   • The hidden queue behind an apparently automated request
   • Service, support, or neithermatch pairs
2. 02

   Designing a golden path

   5 lessons
   • Writing a golden path from repository to production
   • Choosing which path to pave first
   • Opinionated defaults and the cost of holding them
   • Documenting the path as a promise rather than a suggestion
   • Paths, roads and railsfill blank
3. 03

   Guard rails, not gates

   5 lessons
   • Turning an approval gate into an automated guard rail
   • Policy applied as a default rather than a review
   • Safe escape hatches and exception handling
   • Progressive trust for teams with a track record
   • From gate to guard railsequence order
4. 04

   Building the self-service experience

   5 lessons
   • The anatomy of a request that provisions itself
   • Idempotency, retries and partial failure
   • Status, feedback and error messages developers can act on
   • Rate limits, quotas and approval thresholds
   • The request that never finishedscenario
5. 05

   Keeping paths paved

   5 lessons
   • Detecting and closing the gap between the path and reality
   • Drift between templates and running services
   • Path deprecation and mass migration
   • Measuring adherence and reading the exception log
   • Naming the driftmatch pairs
6. 06

   Practice and check

   5 lessons
   • Self-service vocabulary, sortedmatch pairs
   • Retiring an approval step without losing the controlsequence order
   • The rules behind a self-service requestfill blank
   • Monday, 09:10: one request, four ways to answer itscenario
   • Course quizquiz

The shape of it

How this course works