platform-engineering-assessment

name	platform-engineering-assessment
enabled	true
description	Use when performing platform engineering assessment — assesses the maturity and effectiveness of an organization's internal developer platform (IDP). Covers self-service capabilities, developer experience, golden paths, platform team structure, adoption metrics, and roadmap for building a platform that accelerates software delivery.
required_connections	[{"prefix":"project-management","label":"Project Management Tool"}]
config_fields	[{"key":"organization_name","label":"Organization Name","required":true,"placeholder":"e.g., Acme Corp Engineering"},{"key":"developer_count","label":"Number of Developers Using Platform","required":true,"placeholder":"e.g., 200"},{"key":"platform_stage","label":"Current Platform Stage","required":false,"placeholder":"e.g., no platform, early stage, growing, mature"}]
features	["DEVOPS","PLATFORM_ENGINEERING","ASSESSMENT"]

Platform Engineering Assessment

Phase 1: Platform Capabilities Inventory

1. Catalog current platform capabilities
   • Infrastructure provisioning (self-service)
   • Application scaffolding / service templates
   • CI/CD pipeline templates
   • Environment management (create, clone, destroy)
   • Secrets management
   • Observability stack (logging, metrics, tracing)
   • Service catalog / developer portal
   • Database provisioning
   • API gateway / service mesh
   • Cost visibility per team/service
2. Identify capabilities that are manual or missing
3. Map capabilities to developer journey stages

Capability Maturity Matrix

Capability	Not Available	Manual/Ticket	Partially Automated	Self-Service	Fully Managed	Current
Infra provisioning	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
App scaffolding	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
CI/CD	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Environments	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Observability	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Secrets	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Databases	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]

Phase 2: Developer Experience Assessment

1. Evaluate developer experience
   • Time from idea to first deployment (new service)
   • Time to onboard a new developer
   • Cognitive load on developers (infra knowledge required)
   • Number of tools developers must interact with
   • Documentation quality and discoverability
   • Developer satisfaction scores (survey)
2. Identify top developer pain points
3. Measure self-service adoption rate

Developer Experience Metrics

Metric	Current	Target	Industry Benchmark
New service time-to-deploy	days	< 1 day	Hours
Developer onboarding time	days	< 5 days	1 week
Tools to learn	count	< 5	3-5
Self-service adoption	%	> 80%	70%+
Developer satisfaction (NPS)		> 30	20-40

Phase 3: Golden Paths & Standards

1. Evaluate golden paths (paved roads)
   • Standardized service templates exist
   • Templates cover common architectures (API, worker, frontend)
   • Templates include CI/CD, monitoring, security by default
   • Templates are maintained and updated regularly
   • Deviation from golden path is possible but requires justification
   • Inner-source contribution model for templates
2. Assess standardization vs. flexibility balance

Phase 4: Platform Team Assessment

1. Evaluate platform team structure and practices
   • Dedicated platform team exists
   • Team treats platform as a product (product management, roadmap)
   • User research conducted with internal developers
   • Platform backlog prioritized by developer impact
   • Platform SLOs defined and tracked
   • On-call rotation for platform services
   • Platform team size appropriate (1 platform engineer per 10-15 developers)
2. Assess platform team skills and capacity

Phase 5: Adoption & Impact Metrics

1. Measure platform adoption and impact
   • Percentage of services using platform capabilities
   • Deployment frequency (platform users vs. non-users)
   • Lead time improvement from platform adoption
   • Incident rate (platform vs. non-platform services)
   • Developer time saved per week
   • Cost efficiency improvements
2. Identify barriers to adoption

Platform Impact Dashboard

Metric	Platform Users	Non-Platform Users	Improvement
Deploy frequency	/week	/week	x
Lead time	hours	hours	x
Change failure rate	%	%	-%
MTTR	min	min	-%

Phase 6: Improvement Roadmap

1. Prioritize platform improvements by developer impact
2. Plan capability buildout sequence
3. Define adoption targets and timeline
4. Plan team growth and skill development
5. Establish platform product management practices

Counter-Rationalizations

Shortcut	Counter	Why
"We can skip some steps for this case"	Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them	Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate
"The user seems to already know what to do"	Complete all workflow phases with the user	The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses
"This is a minor case, full process is overkill"	Scale the process down, don't turn it off	Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears
"I'll fill in the details later"	Complete each section before moving on	Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate
"The template output isn't necessary"	Always produce the structured output format	Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams

Output Format

• Capability Inventory: Current platform capabilities and gaps
• Developer Experience Report: Pain points and satisfaction metrics
• Golden Path Assessment: Template coverage and quality
• Adoption Metrics: Usage and impact data
• Platform Roadmap: Prioritized improvement plan

Action Items

• Catalog all current platform capabilities
• Survey developers on pain points and satisfaction
• Measure key developer experience metrics
• Assess golden path coverage and quality
• Identify highest-impact platform improvements
• Develop phased platform roadmap
• Establish platform product management practices