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Tech Radar

What this screen is for

The Tech Radar records your organisation’s position on technologies: what to adopt, what to trial, what to assess, and what to stop using. It exists so that “should we use X here?” has an answer that does not depend on who you ask.

Before you start

To do this You need
Open the page signed in

Opening it

  1. Explore › Tech Radar in the sidebar.

Direct URL: /tech-radar

The interface

📸 Screenshot Placeholder: The Tech Radar. Mark: (1) the rings, (2) the quadrants, (3) a blip, (4) the detail shown on selecting a blip.

# Control What it shows When you’d use it
1 Rings The recommendation — from adopt through to hold The decision itself
2 Quadrants The category of technology Browsing one area
3 Blip One technology Looking something up
4 Detail Why it sits where it sits Before arguing with it

The ring is the recommendation; the detail is the reasoning. Reading only the ring gets you a rule you cannot defend in a design review.

Walkthroughs

Check a technology before adopting it

Find the blip and read both its ring and its detail. If it is on hold, the detail usually names what to use instead.

Use it in a design review

Cite the ring and the reasoning together. A radar entry is a decision the organisation already made, which saves relitigating it in every project.

Scenario

Choosing a datastore for a new service.

  1. Explore › Tech Radar, go to the relevant quadrant.
  2. Note what sits in adopt. Starting from adopt is how you get a service other people can operate.
  3. Read the detail for anything in trial you are tempted by. Trial means somebody is taking on risk deliberately — fine if that is you and you know it.
  4. Check whether your preferred option is on hold, and why. “We already tried this and it went badly” is worth far more than a fresh opinion.
  5. Cross-check Architecture: what comparable services already use matters as much as the radar, because operational familiarity is a real cost.
  6. If your choice contradicts the radar, write down why. That is how the radar gets updated instead of quietly ignored.

When it doesn’t work

Symptom Cause How to check Fix
A technology you use is not on the radar It has never been assessed — Propose it through your platform team
An entry looks out of date Radar entries are maintained deliberately, not automatically The entry’s detail Raise it for review
The detail does not explain the ring The entry is thin — Ask the owning team to expand it
The radar is empty No radar data is configured for this install — A platform-level configuration task

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