Top 15 Platform Engineering Best Practices

Platform engineering is the process of building and maintaining internal platforms to meet developer needs, automating complex DevOps workflows and enhancing productivity. Successful platform engineering requires understanding developers' workflows and addressing their specific pain points, while balancing cost, speed, and stability. Key best practices include creating standardized workflows known as Golden Paths, employing infrastructure as code (IaC) and continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) for self-service provision, and implementing policy-driven governance to ensure security and compliance. Treating platforms as products, including developers in decision-making, and maintaining short feedback loops are crucial for platform success. Observability, clear documentation, and understanding trade-offs between stability and agility are emphasized, along with the importance of gaining stakeholder buy-in. The use of AI agents, FinOps for cost control, and prioritizing scalability, reliability, and simplicity are also highlighted as essential strategies. Spacelift is mentioned as a tool that facilitates platform engineering through infrastructure orchestration, allowing developers to self-serve infrastructure in a secure and scalable manner.

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