fourkeys VS www-gitlab-com

The metrics in this article are listed in order of difficulty, from easiest to most difficult. Deployment frequency only requires that we know that a deployment occurred at a certain time. From there, we can calculate a histogram with daily, weekly or monthly buckets. In the DORA metrics project Four Keys, the only complexity in the calculation is creating rows for time buckets where there were no deployments.

Four Keys is an open source alternative by Google employees that has been halted earlier this year (but forks-friendly).

DORA metrics

We began tracking Dora metrics by saving all events from our SCM and CI/CD systems into postres DB. Guidance: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/fourkeys

For starters, there a number of tools such as Sleuth (disclaimer: am co-founder) that will measure the metrics for you. There are also open source options like Four Keys and many vendors like Gitlab also provide some or all metrics as well, though make sure they are measuring things as you expect.

I looked a lot for a tool that could help my team track these metrics. I knew that Jira, Gitlab, and some other tools implement these features but I was looking for something with a high level of customization, and not so coupled to a specific product (we use different systems for deployment, change, and incident) and one day I incidentally discovered FourKeys.

GoogleCloudPlatform/fourkeys is a software tool built by Google to generate insights from data based on the four core metrics mentioned above.

One solution we would recommend is the Four Keys project by Google.

> Whatever spark they were feeling in the moment would be sufficiently stomped when they notice the first step in the tutorial is to create a Makefile. Keep in mind they also introduce the concept of variables and if statements. This tutorial's aimed at total beginners!

Thanks for your great feedback. I suggested using a Makefile during blog post review [0], to avoid explaining gcc compiler flags, and have a single command with `make build` available for future, repeated compilation steps. I did not expect this to be an entry barrier, and will reconsider suggesting makefiles in the future. Thanks again.

[0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

(GitLab team member here)

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing. GitLab team member here.

Would it be ok for you if I add that command snippet into a blog post I am currently writing about Observability for Efficient DevSecOps Pipelines? Draft MR is in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/issues/34296 Thanks!

Regarding pipeline visibility and traces: I would love to see the same :-) I tested tracepusher with OpenTelemetry this week, and the timeline for CI/CD traces is a great start in Jaeger. Added a suggestion into https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5071#note_14582... where CI/CD Visibility is being worked on, with an update on GitLab support for traces in https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5071#note_14584...

Tangentially related: One can store SSH server host keys in DNS and tell the client to make use of them. This is an alternative to the client asking the user to confirm the server host key, which many people just blindly confirm.

I asked GitLab if they could make use of that, but it hasn't received much attention so far:

* https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/issues/10376

Thanks a lot for helping :-)

I've created an MR to link MVC in the handbook: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

(GitLab team member here)

Why not? Gitlab keeps their entire employee handbook in a Git repo.

Today I learned, thanks a lot!

Created a MR for the Developer Evangelism Hacker News handbook to add this formatting tip, and some more https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...

As a shadow, you would contribute anywhere, not just on the CEO Shadow process.

I see them often on slack updating various random pages:

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_request...