What is an internal developer portal?
An internal developer portal is a developer’s first port of call when they need information, tools, documentation, services, and other resources for their daily tasks. Providing information in a central location makes it easier for developers to find what they need and encourages their use of internal developer platforms.
Developer portals often integrate with approved tools and provide self-service capabilities for developers to use. The portal often removes the need to learn the underlying tools by providing one-click options developers can use without leaving the portal. This reduces tool switching and reduces the need for developers to learn many different user interfaces to complete their work.
This is part of a series of articles about developer experience
Key components of an internal developer portal
1. Software catalog
A software catalog lists an organization’s available projects, services, and tools. This makes it easy to find available options and encourages teams to adopt standard tools. By categorizing resources, developers can locate and use existing code libraries and services, reducing development time and fostering reuse.
2. Developer self-service actions
Allowing developers to self-serve platform capabilities through the portal removes wait times associated with ticket-based operations. Developers can configure environments, deploy applications, and manage resources without depending on another team to action their requests.
Self-service actions increase autonomy and accelerate the development process. They also build a culture of accountability and independence where developers can focus on building features rather than chasing requests.
3. Software scorecards and quality metrics
Software scorecards help developers identify areas where they haven’t followed coding standards or where they can improve code quality or performance. Bringing the results into the developer portal makes them visible to developers without making them open another tool. With this information, they can identify and resolve code quality issues early.
Actively monitoring quality metrics means resolutions are always a small task that developers can complete as soon as an issue is flagged. This is a virtuous cycle as developers report increased productivity when working with high-quality code.
4. Integration with existing tools and systems
Internal developer portals must smoothly integrate with existing tools and systems to be effective. This is essential for making the portal the first place developers look for information. The portal may surface information from version control, builds, deployments, and code scanning tools.
The best platforms and portals depend on the innovation and advancement of the underlying tools. Bringing together all the information in one place makes it easier for new developers to orient themselves and encourages developers to align with the organization’s desired tech stacks.
Related content: Read our guide to DORA metrics
Benefits of internal developer portals
Internal developer portals bring several benefits to software development teams by addressing common challenges in modern development environments:
- Centralized resource management: Internal developer portals serve as a single source of truth, consolidating access to tools, services, and documentation. This reduces the time spent searching for resources and helps teams focus on development tasks.
- Improved developer productivity: Portals allow developers to concentrate on building and delivering features by minimizing context switching and simplifying workflows. Self-service capabilities further reduce dependency on other teams, enabling faster iteration cycles.
- Enhanced collaboration: Portals create a unified platform for sharing knowledge, standardizing processes, and fostering cross-team collaboration. They reduce silos by making resources and workflows transparent and accessible.
- Higher code quality and visibility: Features like software scorecards and quality metrics promote adherence to coding standards and provide actionable insights into project health. Teams can proactively identify and address issues, reducing technical debt and improving maintainability.
- Reduced cognitive load: By aggregating tools and automating repetitive tasks, internal developer portals lessen the cognitive burden on developers. This fosters better decision-making and increases overall satisfaction within the team.
Tony Kelly is a DevOps marketing leader who drives innovation and awareness of the latest trends in Continuous Delivery.
Differences between internal developer portal and internal developer platform
You’ll likely hear “internal developer portal” and “internal developer platform” used interchangeably. But these are two distinct and complementary parts of a platform.
- Primary purpose: An internal developer portal is a central hub for accessing tools, resources, and documentation, focusing on improving discoverability and efficiency. An internal developer platform provides the underlying infrastructure and capabilities for automating and managing workflows, enabling developers to execute tasks like provisioning environments or deploying applications.
- Scope of functionality: Portals emphasize navigation and accessibility by offering a user-friendly interface for discovering resources and enabling self-service actions. Platforms provide execution capabilities for managing and orchestrating technical processes, such as container orchestration, CI/CD pipelines, or cloud resource management.
- User interaction: Developer portals are designed to be developer-facing, prioritizing usability and ease of access. They serve as a knowledge repository and a launchpad for various tasks. Developer platforms are typically operator-focused or backend-oriented, abstracting complex infrastructure management while offering APIs or tools that integrate into developer workflows.
- Integration focus: Portals aggregate and integrate existing tools, acting as a central access point. They largely depend on integrating with platforms and external systems to deliver value. Platforms focus on unifying and standardizing the underlying technical infrastructure, often acting as the foundation that portals use.
- Customization: Internal developer portals are often tailored to meet developers’ needs, with custom interfaces or extensions to surface relevant resources. Internal developer platforms are built to standardize and optimize operational workflows, focusing on consistency and reliability across environments.
Best practices for implementing internal developer portals
Here are some essential practices for organizations to consider when adopting an internal developer portal.
1. Start with a minimum viable portal
Start small and iterate to success. When building an internal developer portal, it is essential to deliver incrementally and get feedback along the way. Start in areas that align with the goals of a developer platform so you can provide value quickly.
The portal should be very thin, exposing rather than implementing the underlying features of the platform and tools. Minimizing ambition will mean you create a better and more adaptable portal.
2. Involve developers in the design process
Given that the portal’s goal is to remove friction from the development process, you must take a user-centric approach to design. Pay particular attention to small irritations. These are often lost amidst bigger portal features but if you let too many accumulate, developers won’t want to use the portal.
Ask for feedback early and often and seek to understand the developers using the portal. This will help you create a well-adapted portal to meet user needs.
3. Provide high-quality documentation
Documentation is essential for the success of an internal developer portal. Providing guides that cover setup, use, and troubleshooting helps users maximize the platform’s potential. Documentation should be easily accessible, user-friendly, and regularly updated to reflect changes and improvements to the portal.
Visual aids such as diagrams and video tutorials can complement written instructions, catering to different learning styles. Effective documentation allows users to resolve issues independently, reducing support demands and improving productivity.
4. Include security and compliance
Security and compliance are key concerns as the portal contains sensitive information and access to privileged operations. Strong authentication, role-based access controls, and encryption will help prevent unauthorized access to portal features.
Regular audits and compliance checks should be part of the portal’s lifecycle to adapt to evolving standards and threats. By embedding security and compliance into the portal’s foundation, organizations protect their assets, maintain trust with stakeholders, and set a strong example for development teams.
5. Regularly update and maintain the portal
Regular updates and maintenance are critical for an internal developer portal’s sustained performance and relevance. This includes bug fixes, feature improvements, and security patches to ensure the portal remains effective.
A consistent update schedule keeps the portal in line with technological advancements and user needs. Maintenance also involves monitoring system performance and user feedback to identify areas for improvement.
6. Measure impact and gather feedback
Just as the internal developer platform should be tracked against its goals, the portal can be assessed against user engagement, successful task completion, and user satisfaction metrics. Continuously monitoring these metrics will highlight which areas are successful and where improvements could be made.
User feedback via surveys, interviews, and feedback tools complements quantitative data, offering qualitative insights into user experiences. This balanced evaluation informs strategic decisions for future development, ensuring the portal continues to deliver value.
How Octopus supports a modern developer experience
Developers want to solve problems and are happier when they can be productive. They need frequent, high-quality feedback loops, manageable cognitive load, and substantial focus time to achieve a flow state. When developers experience friction, it’s a sign that they can’t deliver as much value as they feel they could.
The CD pipeline is the element of their workflow that has the most significant influence on these factors. Deployment automation improves the DORA 4 keys and impacts all 3 DevEx dimensions of feedback, flow, and cognitive load.
Octopus improves software delivery performance, increasing deployment frequency while reducing deployment-related failures. You can also provide self-service deployments and runbooks for developers so they don’t have to raise tickets for deployments or day-2 operations tasks, further boosting productivity and performance.
Find out more or start a trial to see how it works.
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