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Canonical Service Catalog
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Description

FINAL DECISION STATEMENT OVERVIEW: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_C-okd1VBQMmNPMNOOWx0EKC7aXSxplGaOa1x4Yg5sc/edit?usp=sharing


DRAFT PROPOSAL:
Instructions

  1. Define the problem or opportunity (WHAT).
  2. Outline the importance of addressing the problem or opportunity (WHY).

WHAT?

Write your problem statement using layperson’s terminology.
In one sentence, what is the problem or opportunity?

  • There is no source of truth for all the different software components we own and maintain.

What does the future look like if this is achieved?

  • Service information like SLOs, API Reference Documentation, and more can be found in one place.
  • Rules and governance can be codified rather than done manually
  • Code ownership and clear points of contact will be made available per service

What happens if we do nothing?

  • Discoverability of APIs will continue to be difficult
  • Service information, documentation and code will continue to live in different places with no great way to connect them all
  • Code ownership will continue to be difficult to manage

WHY?

Identify the value(s) this problem/opportunity provides. Add links to relevant OKRs.
Rank values in order of importance and be explicit about who this benefits and where the value is.

User Value/Organization Value AND Objective it supports and How

  1. API practitioners (Internal Devs, External Partners, Product Managers, SRE) can easily discover and leverage APIs

Why are you bringing this decision to the Technical Forum?
What about the scope of this problem led you and your team to seek input across departments/organizations?

  • How might we best design a sustainable way to codify pertinent service information like status, owner and documentation?
  • Understand what efforts have been tried in the past and why haven't they worked well?
  • Who else would benefit from using/leveraging this product?

Event Timeline

@sdkim this is similar/related to T190891. The scope of concern might be a bit different, but it seems to make sense that these should be related. The Canonical Service Catalog work also seem to be very closely related to the Code Stewardship initiative. Probably worth talking a bit about how these efforts could at a minimum be coordinated.

Without seeing this phab task or reading the decision statement I started playing around with https://backstage.io/ and created https://backstage.toolforge.org/ which is currently powered by https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/addshore/backstage
Going to read the doc that is here now ...

I have to say I find this proposal somewhat underspecified. I would like to leave some questions here, hoping they are helpful.

There is no source of truth for all the different software components we own and maintain.

Who is "we"? What "software" do you have in mind?

APIs […]

From that point on the proposal does not talk about "software components" any more, but about "APIs"? What's the difference, in the context of this proposal? What "APIs" do you have in mind?

Rules and governance can be codified rather than done manually

What "rules"?

Service information, documentation and code will continue to live in different places […]

This is more a question. Sorry if I misunderstood. But this proposal does not aim to change this, right?

Without seeing this phab task or reading the decision statement I started playing around with https://backstage.io/ and created https://backstage.toolforge.org/ which is currently powered by https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/addshore/backstage

Going to read the doc that is here now

@Addshore this is an interesting tool. As noted above, T190891 is looking to fill a similar gap as this tasks, with a bit broader scope. This looks like a tool that might help do that. Thanks for sharing.