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What is HCP Waypoint?

HCP Waypoint is an internal developer platform (IDP) that allows platform teams to define golden patterns and workflows that enable a self-service experience for developers.

HCP Waypoint helps app developers who are responsible for creating applications and the platform engineers responsible for maintaining the infrastructure the applications run on. These roles may overlap or align differently in your organization, but HCP Waypoint is intended to ease the workload for any practitioner responsible for either set of tasks.

Hands On: Try the Get Started with HCP Waypoint collection to set up an HCP Waypoint template and add-on definitions, then use them to deploy a sample application and its supporting infrastructure.

How does HCP Waypoint work?

HCP Waypoint integrates deeply with HCP Terraform no-code modules to standardize infrastructure management and application deployments within your organization. This enables you to address challenges often associated with Day 0 and Day 1. Both platform engineers and application engineers can benefit from HCP Waypoint.

There are several key workflows for HCP Waypoint:

  1. Day 0 - Set up the templates: Platform engineers create shared templates for deploying applications and their underlying infrastructure, and add-on definitions for common services. These standardized, shared templates, and add-on definitions codify the requirements from stakeholders across the organization including security, compliance, and finance.

    HCP Waypoint templates and add-on definitions abstract the complexity of underlying infrastructure tooling, enabling app developers to deploy their applications using a self-service model.

    Platform engineers need to configure HCP Waypoint to interact with their HCP Terraform organization, create and manage templates, and create and manage add-on definitions.

    Platform engineer creates and maintains no-code modules in HCP Terraform. They configure HCP Waypoint templates and add-on definitions to reference the no-code modules. Platform engineer creates and maintains no-code modules in HCP Terraform. They configure HCP Waypoint templates and add-on definitions to reference the no-code modules.

  2. Day 1 - Set up the application: Application developers leverage the templates and add-ons created by the platform engineers to deploy applications and their supporting infrastructure. The platform team maintains the templates and add-ons, which allows application developers to focus on building applications using a repeatable process on standardized infrastructure.

    Application developers use templates to deploy applications, and use add-ons to deploy supporting infrastructure and services for the applications.

    Application developer use templates to create HCP Waypoint applications. The template triggers the no-code module in HCP Terraform, which creates an HCP Waypoint application. Application developer use templates to create HCP Waypoint applications. The template triggers the no-code module in HCP Terraform, which creates an HCP Waypoint application.

    Application developer installs an add-on on an existing HCP Waypoint application. This triggers the no-code module in HCP Terraform to deploy the supporting infrastructure. Application developer installs an add-on on an existing HCP Waypoint application. This triggers the no-code module in HCP Terraform to deploy the supporting infrastructure.

  3. Day 2 - Configure actions: Platform engineers create actions that interact with upstream APIs. Action interact with CI/CD systems, trigger backup and restore operations, toggle feature flags, and implement other custom workflows. The platform engineer assigns the actions to HCP Waypoint templates to create a golden workflow.

    Platform engineers create actions and assign them to templates and applications. These actions interact with upstream APIs to perform ongoing day 2 operations. Platform engineers create actions and assign them to templates and applications. These actions interact with upstream APIs to perform ongoing day 2 operations.

    Application developers can use these actions to perform ongoing maintenance operations, such as toggling a feature flag, creating a new build, or performing a backup.

    Application develops can use these actions in their applications to easily perform operations such as toggling a feature flag, perform a backup, or other custom workflows. Application develops can use these actions in their applications to easily perform operations such as toggling a feature flag, perform a backup, or other custom workflows.

Community

Ask questions in the official Waypoint forum.