The technology radar of mess.systems: which products and specifications the organisation uses, how firmly, and why.
It is a simplified radar in plain Markdown: one table, three rings, and one card per technology. There is no site and no generator; the files in this repository are the radar.
The radar covers the technologies named in the mess.systems naming standard. Each card links back to the sections of the standard that name it.
| Ring | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Adopt | The default choice. New work uses it unless a recorded reason says otherwise. |
| Trial | In use within a limited scope. New use outside that scope needs a reason. |
| Hold | No new adoption. Existing use may continue until it is replaced. |
There is no "Assess" ring: a technology enters the radar when it is used, not when it is being considered.
Categories are the domain codes of the naming standard, so the radar and the standard use one vocabulary. Each card names the capability it serves, taken from the standard's capability codes.
| Code | Domain |
|---|---|
iam |
identity, access, PKI, secrets, passwords |
net |
DNS, mesh, edge, firewall |
infra |
compute, storage, backup, hypervisor |
sdlc |
code, CI, artifacts, GitOps |
obs |
metrics, logs, traces, alerting |
ai |
inference, gateway, speech, vision, agents |
data |
warehouse, pipelines, catalog, BI, document store |
collab |
chat, wiki, docs, video |
Codes from the standard that have no entry yet are not listed.
Every card in technologies/ has the same sections:
- What it is: two or three lines and a link to the official site.
- Why mess.systems uses it: the role it plays, tied to the naming standard.
- Alternatives considered: comparable options and why this one.
- Where it applies: links to the sections of the naming standard that name it.
- Review trigger: the event that reopens the decision.
- History: every ring change with its date.
A ring change, a new entry, or a removal is a pull request with a short rationale. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Text licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (license deed). You may share and adapt it, including commercially, with attribution: "mess.systems tech radar (https://github.com/mess-systems/tech-radar), CC BY 4.0".