Cocker

Running a real application means writing three kinds of configuration files for one simple idea: these services, connected like this. Cocker is my attempt at a platform where you draw that idea as a graph and the platform does the rest. It is an early prototype: the design is complete, and the backend half works.

It has two modes:

• Sandbox: try your stack in a private, isolated space, with live logs.
• Production: promote the very same graph to a public deployment.

How it works

Each customer gets their own isolated space on a Kubernetes cluster, with a private store for their images, all created by one request when they sign up. The backend handles accounts and sessions; the visual graph editor, image building and security scanning are designed and written down, but not built yet.

What I took from it

• Writing the plan down first made it obvious which part was hard (isolating customers and building their images), and that the pretty editor is only worth building once the backend can really deploy what it draws.
• I stopped where the prototype had proved the backend idea; knowing when a prototype has done its job is a skill too.