🥋 Fawkes Dojo

Learn Platform Engineering by Building and Operating a Real Platform

Welcome to the Fawkes Dojo

The Fawkes Dojo is not a traditional course or documentation site. It's an immersive learning environment where you master platform engineering by building and operating real platform infrastructure in a production-like environment.

Through 20 hands-on modules organized by belt levels, you'll progress from Platform Fundamentals to Platform Architecture, covering all 24 DORA capabilities. Each module combines theory, demonstration, hands-on labs, and immediate feedback.

✅ Learn by Doing

Labs run against real, running platform stacks, not simulations

✅ Safe to Fail

Labs run on your own machine or cluster, so mistakes cost nothing

✅ Immediate Feedback

Lab validation scripts and live dashboards show whether each step worked

✅ Progressive Mastery

Clear belt system showing skill progression

✅ Real Tools, Real Skills

Same tools used in production environments

✅ Open Source

Every module and lab is MIT-licensed on GitHub

20 Modules
40 Hours of Learning
5 Belt Levels
24 DORA Capabilities

Belt Progression Path

Total Time: 40 hours (1 week full-time or 5 weeks part-time)

⚪
White Belt
8 hours
Platform Fundamentals
→
🟡
Yellow Belt
8 hours
CI/CD Mastery
→
🟢
Green Belt
8 hours
GitOps & Deployment
→
🟤
Brown Belt
8 hours
Observability & SRE
→
⚫
Black Belt
8 hours
Platform Architecture

Ready to Begin Your Journey?

Start with Module 1 or jump to any belt level based on your experience

Start White Belt Certification Status
⚪

White Belt: Platform Fundamentals

⏱️ 8 hours 📚 4 modules 🎓 Certification (planned): Fawkes Platform Operator
🎯 4 of 24 DORA Capabilities

Core Competencies

  • Understand what an Internal Delivery Platform is and why it matters
  • Explain DORA metrics and their business impact
  • Navigate Backstage portal and service catalog
  • Deploy an application using a golden path template
  • View and interpret basic DORA metrics
1
Internal Delivery Platforms - What and Why
⏱️ 60 minutes
What is an IDP, why organizations need them, Platform as a Product mindset, and Fawkes platform tour.
2
DORA Metrics - The North Star
⏱️ 60 minutes
Five Key Metrics explained, high vs. low performers, business outcomes, and Fawkes DORA automation.
3
GitOps Principles
⏱️ 60 minutes
Declarative infrastructure, Git as source of truth, automated reconciliation, and benefits.
4
Your First Deployment
⏱️ 60 minutes
Golden path templates, deployment process, monitoring progress, and viewing DORA metrics.
🟡

Yellow Belt: CI/CD Mastery

⏱️ 8 hours 📚 4 modules 🎓 Certification (planned): Fawkes CI/CD Specialist
🎯 6 additional DORA Capabilities (10 total)

Core Competencies

  • Build CI pipelines from scratch with uFawkesPipe's Woodpecker CI (Module 5; its lab is written ahead of the stack's release and not yet run for real)
  • Implement security scanning (SAST, dependency check, container scanning)
  • Configure quality gates and automated testing
  • Optimize build times and resource usage
  • Implement pipeline-as-code best practices
5
Continuous Integration Fundamentals
⏱️ 60 minutes
CI principles, pipeline-as-code, and build stages, taught with Woodpecker. The lab is not yet run for real.
6
Building Golden Path Pipelines
⏱️ 60 minutes
Shared libraries, multi-stage pipelines, caching and optimization, parallel execution.
7
Security Scanning & Quality Gates
⏱️ 60 minutes
Static analysis, dependency scanning, container scanning, quality gates and policy enforcement.
8
Artifact Management
⏱️ 60 minutes
Container registry (Harbor), versioning strategies, artifact promotion, retention policies.
🟢

Green Belt: GitOps & Deployment

⏱️ 8 hours 📚 4 modules 🎓 Certification (planned): Fawkes Deployment Engineer
🎯 7 additional DORA Capabilities (17 total)

Core Competencies

  • Implement GitOps workflows with ArgoCD
  • Configure blue-green and canary deployments
  • Implement progressive delivery with automated rollback
  • Manage multi-environment deployments (dev, staging, prod)
  • Troubleshoot deployment failures and rollback safely
9
GitOps with ArgoCD
⏱️ 60 minutes
ArgoCD architecture, application definitions, sync policies, health assessment.
10
Deployment Strategies
⏱️ 60 minutes
Blue-green, canary, rolling updates, feature flags with hands-on examples.
11
Progressive Delivery
⏱️ 60 minutes
Traffic splitting, automated rollback triggers, metrics-driven deployments, A/B testing.
12
Rollback & Incident Response
⏱️ 60 minutes
When and how to rollback, incident detection, emergency procedures, postmortem process.
🟤

Brown Belt: Observability & SRE

⏱️ 8 hours 📚 4 modules 🎓 Certification (planned): Fawkes SRE Practitioner
🎯 5 additional DORA Capabilities (22 total)

Core Competencies

  • Configure comprehensive observability (metrics, logs, traces)
  • Design and implement custom DORA metrics dashboards
  • Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
  • Implement distributed tracing for microservices
  • Conduct effective incident response and postmortems
13
Metrics, Logs, and Traces
⏱️ 60 minutes
Three pillars of observability, Prometheus metrics, OpenSearch logs, Jaeger tracing.
14
DORA Metrics Deep Dive
⏱️ 60 minutes
Advanced DORA calculation, custom dashboards, team vs. org metrics, continuous improvement.
15
SLIs, SLOs, and Error Budgets
⏱️ 60 minutes
Defining SLIs, setting SLOs, calculating error budgets, using budgets for decisions.
16
Incident Management & Postmortems
⏱️ 60 minutes
Incident severity levels, on-call best practices, effective response, blameless postmortems.
⚫

Black Belt: Platform Architecture

⏱️ 8 hours 📚 4 modules 🎓 Certification (planned): Fawkes Platform Architect
🎯 2 final DORA Capabilities (24 total - 100%)

Core Competencies

  • Design platform architecture for new teams
  • Implement multi-tenancy and resource governance
  • Design security architecture (zero trust principles)
  • Plan multi-cloud deployment strategies
  • Mentor others in platform engineering
  • Contribute to platform codebase
17
Platform as a Product
⏱️ 60 minutes
Treating platform as product, understanding developer needs, platform roadmapping, measuring success.
18
Multi-Tenancy & Resource Management
⏱️ 60 minutes
Namespace isolation, resource quotas and limits, network policies, RBAC strategies.
19
Security & Zero Trust
⏱️ 60 minutes
Zero trust principles, policy as code, secrets management, compliance automation.
20
Multi-Cloud Strategies
⏱️ 60 minutes
Multi-cloud patterns, Crossplane for abstraction, disaster recovery, cost optimization.

🎓 Certification Path (planned)

Belt certifications are planned but not available yet. There is no exam platform, badge, or verification today. The cards below show what each certification is intended to cover.

⚪

Platform Operator

Complete White Belt

80% passing score

🟡

CI/CD Specialist

Complete Yellow Belt

85% passing score

🟢

Deployment Engineer

Complete Green Belt

85% passing score

🟤

SRE Practitioner

Complete Brown Belt

85% passing score

⚫

Platform Architect

Complete Black Belt

90% passing score + mentoring

📊 Complete DORA Capabilities Coverage

The Fawkes Dojo curriculum covers all 24 DORA capabilities across the belt progression:

Continuous Delivery (8)

  • Version Control
  • Deployment Automation
  • Continuous Integration
  • Trunk-Based Development
  • Test Automation
  • Test Data Management
  • Shift Left on Security
  • Continuous Delivery

Architecture (3)

  • Loosely Coupled Architecture
  • Empowering Teams
  • Database Change Management

Product & Process (6)

  • Team Experimentation
  • Work in Small Batches
  • Visual Management
  • WIP Limits
  • Visualizing Work
  • Change Approval Process

Lean Management (4)

  • Monitoring & Observability
  • Proactive Failure Notification
  • Lightweight Change Approval
  • Code Review

Cultural (3)

  • Generative Organizational Culture
  • Learning Culture
  • Job Satisfaction

🚀 Getting Started

For Beginners (No platform experience)

Start with Module 1: Internal Delivery Platforms and progress sequentially through White Belt.

For DevOps Engineers (Some CI/CD experience)

Start with Module 5: Continuous Integration Fundamentals (Yellow Belt).

For Platform Engineers (Experienced)

Jump to Module 17: Platform as a Product (Black Belt) or focus on specific skill gaps.

Lab Environment

Labs run on real stacks you start yourself; nothing is auto-provisioned. Two modules have runnable labs today:

Each lab ends with a validation script that tells you whether you finished. More labs are added as each uFawkes stack is released.

Assessment & Certification

Written belt assessments are available in the assessments folder. Practical exams, scoring, and certification are planned but not built yet.

Support & Community

Learning Tips

Fawkes Dojo · part of the uFawkes suite · MIT licensed