Groundwork
Ship more consistently without adding engineering bureaucracy.
The lightweight engineering operating system for teams growing beyond their first few developers.
Answer a few questions about your team. Get a playbook, GitHub templates, and an operating rhythm you can install this week.
The usual mess
You hired a few developers. Someone became the tech lead. Delivery is still whatever each person happens to do. PRs look like they came from different companies. Releases are a mood. The lead is the bottleneck, and nobody wants a corporate operating model.
What you actually need
A short contract for done. A pull request that can be reviewed. A release that is boring. Named owners. One automation that earns its keep. Then stop. Measure. Remove anything that does not pay rent.
In the Starter Kit
- Definition of Done, fitted to how you actually ship
- PR, testing, and release standards
- Ownership and delegation so the lead is not the process
- A tech lead 30/60/90 and a weekly operating rhythm
- GitHub PR/issue templates and a CI starter workflow
- An automation backlog - not a tool catalogue
Not this
- A course
- A Jira replacement
- A 50-page PDF of 'best practices'
- Another SaaS you have to log into to do the work
Free tools
Use these without buying anything. Each one is a piece of the kit.
Definition of Done generator
A short, honest done-contract for your team - including what you are explicitly not requiring yet.
Tech lead readiness
Ten questions. A score. The three things to do this month, in order.
Engineering process health check
A 20-minute monthly check. If a line stays red, that is the work.
GitHub templates
Copy-paste Definition of Done, PR template, issues, and CI. MIT.