Developer Platform

This repository contains the source code of the Developer Platform API as well as common components and packages that can be used to build providers and clients.

The Developer Platform API serves as the single point of contact for user experiences. It is the Developer Platform's contract with other systems. The API is deployed to Azure and calls the providers.

Terms

API (or Platform API)

Platform API consists of a REST API and an orchestrator that coordinate with Providers to expose data and "self-service" functionality to developers. It serves as the single point of contact for user experiences, and provides a contract for extendability through providers and clients.

Provider

Providers extend the Platform with data and functionality. They can enable developers to do things like create cloud infrastructure and pre-configured repositories, or add flexibility and reduce friction in your processes through automation. Providers are individual services that expose an API that conforms to a specific interface. They are then "registered" with the platform and the platform invokes them on behalf of the user.

Many providers are thin proxies that call out to an existing product or service. You can build your own Providers or leverage others from open source. Below are a few (some in progress) providers. You can explore their source code and the samples in this repository to understand how providers work.

Repo	Description
developer-platform-github	The GitHub provider(s)
developer-platform-devcenter	The Dev Center Azure Deployment Environments provider

Client

Developers interact with the platform through clients. Below are a few clients you can use or explore their source for examples of how to consume the API.

Repo	Description
developer-platform-vscode	Developer Platform VS Code extension (not started)
developer-platform-vscode-chat	Developer Platform GitHub CoPilot chat agent for VS Code
developer-platform-website	React website imitating a company's portal (for testing)

Entity

All data objects in the Platform extend from a base Entity type. For example, a Template is an Entity of kind: Template, an API is represented by an Entity of kind: API. The model and format for entities take a lot from Backstage's descriptor format, which is based on kubernetes object format.

Template

Templates are a special type of entity that enables providers to expose self-service functionality to developers.

How to deploy

TODO: see the deploy folder

Packages

npm

Package
@developer-platform/entities

NuGet

Package
Microsoft.Developer.Abstractions
Microsoft.Developer.Azure
Microsoft.Developer.Data.Cosmos
Microsoft.Developer.DurableTasks
Microsoft.Developer.Entities
Microsoft.Developer.Hosting.AspNetCore
Microsoft.Developer.Hosting.Functions
Microsoft.Developer.Hosting
Microsoft.Developer.MSGraph
Microsoft.Developer.Providers
Microsoft.Developer.Serialization.Json

nuget.config

These nuget packages are currently hosted in a private feed. To consume them in your provider, add a nuget.config file to your solution:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <!--To inherit the global NuGet package sources remove the <clear/> line below -->
    <clear />
    <add key="nuget" value="https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="msdev" value="https://msdevnuget.blob.core.windows.net/feed/index.json" />
  </packageSources>

  <!-- Microsoft.Developer.* packages will be restored from msdev, everything else from nuget.org. -->
  <packageSourceMapping>
    <packageSource key="nuget">
      <package pattern="*" />
    </packageSource>
    <packageSource key="msdev">
      <package pattern="Microsoft.Developer.*" />
    </packageSource>
  </packageSourceMapping>
</configuration>

Additional resources

For more on Platform Engineering and Developer Self-service Foundation, refer to Microsoft Platform engineering guide.

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Trademarks

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.