How Compass Establishes the Foundation for Exceptional Developer Experience
Introduction: The Hidden Crisis in Modern Software Development
Modern software organizations are facing an invisible enemy: software sprawl. As engineering teams embrace distributed architectures, microservices, and cloud-native development, they’re generating an ever-growing mass of services, APIs, libraries, and artifacts. While this architectural evolution enables scalability and flexibility, it comes at a significant cost—cognitive overload for developers who must navigate increasingly complex ecosystems.
Picture this scenario: It’s 2 AM, and an alert wakes you from sleep. A critical service is down, and you’re on call. You scramble to understand which component is affected, who owns it, what its dependencies are, and where the documentation lives. Sound familiar? This fragmented reality is the daily experience for countless developers working in modern distributed environments.
Enter Atlassian Compass—a developer experience platform that was born from Atlassian’s own internal struggle with this exact challenge. Originally built in 2018 as an internal tool called Microscope to help Atlassian’s large, distributed engineering team manage their growing complexity, Compass was externally released in 2022 and made generally available in October 2023. It has since become the trusted companion that development teams never knew they needed.
What is Atlassian Compass?
Atlassian Compass is a developer portal that provides a unified, real-time representation of engineering output in one place. At its core, Compass helps engineering teams track the things they build—called components—including services, APIs, libraries, documentation, and other artifacts that make up modern software architecture.
Unlike traditional documentation, wikis, or scattered spreadsheets, Compass brings disconnected information about components and teams together in a centralized platform. It naturally complements Jira, which tracks the effort of engineering teams, while Compass tracks the output—creating a complete picture of what’s being built and how it’s being maintained.
“Compass is my first stop when I get paged. Instead of wading through Chrome bookmarks, I can easily navigate to the affected component and access service dashboards, view recent deployments, and investigate issues with related dependencies—all in just a few clicks.” — Atlassian Engineer
The Three Pillars of Compass: Building a Developer Experience Foundation
Compass addresses the challenges of software sprawl through three interconnected capabilities that work together to create a comprehensive developer experience platform.
Pillar 1: The Unified Component Catalog
The heart of Compass is its software component catalog—a centralized repository that serves as the single source of truth for your entire technical architecture. This catalog eliminates the countless hours developers spend searching for information by consolidating critical data into a single, searchable interface.
The component catalog enables teams to:
- Navigate software architecture and understand what’s been built
- Track components and the relationships between them through dependency mapping
- Identify ownership—who maintains each component and who to contact during incidents
- Access documentation, APIs, deployment history, and on-call schedules from one place
- Store custom metadata relevant to your organization’s specific needs
For organizations already using GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab for source code management, the catalog can be populated automatically in minutes through integration apps. This means teams can start realizing value immediately without manual data entry.
Pillar 2: Health Scorecards and DevOps Metrics
Knowing what exists is only half the battle—understanding the health of your components is equally critical. Compass introduces scorecards: sets of criteria that measure component health against your organization’s standards and best practices.
Each scorecard criterion carries a weight, and collectively they add up to 100% completion. This scoring system provides clear visibility into which components meet standards and which need attention. Compass includes pre-built scorecard templates such as:
- Component Readiness Scorecard
- Measures how ready components are for production use, evaluating factors like documentation completeness, ownership assignment, and operational setup.
- DevOps Health Scorecard
- Tracks key metrics associated with high-performing development teams, including deployment frequency, build success rates, and incident response metrics aligned with DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) standards.
- Organizations can also create custom scorecards tailored to their specific compliance requirements, security policies, or operational standards. This flexibility allows platform engineering teams to codify best practices while giving individual teams autonomy in how they achieve compliance.
Pillar 3: Extensibility and Integration
Every organization has a unique tech stack, and Compass is built from the ground up with extensibility in mind. The platform integrates data from over 20 different services and allows for extensive customization through Atlassian Forge—Atlassian’s cloud application development platform.
Out-of-the-box integrations include popular tools such as:
- Source control: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket
- CI/CD: CircleCI, Jenkins, AWS CodePipeline
- Observability: New Relic, Datadog, PagerDuty
- Cloud infrastructure: Amazon Web Services
- Feature management: LaunchDarkly
- Security: Snyk
- Collaboration: Slack
For organizations with unique requirements, Compass’s publicly accessible GraphQL API enables teams to build custom integrations, connect proprietary tools, and craft unified experiences that improve developer productivity. Forge allows teams to customize the UI, create new features at the component, team, or global level, all while Atlassian handles compute, storage, and security.
Accelerating Development with Software Templates
One of the most powerful features of Compass for reducing cognitive load is software templates. These templates automate the creation of new services with best practices, policies, cloud provisioning, and deployment pipelines baked right in.
When a developer needs to create a new service, templates provide a standardized starting point that includes preset configurations, boilerplate code, and webhooks aligned with organizational standards. This ensures every new component starts with the right foundation—documentation is automatically created, ownership is assigned, repositories are linked, and CI/CD pipelines are configured.
The benefits extend beyond individual developers. Templates promote consistency across the engineering organization, ensure critical information isn’t overlooked, and dramatically reduce the time from idea to production-ready service.
Real-World Impact: How Organizations Are Using Compass
Since its general availability, world-class engineering organizations across industries have adopted Compass to transform their developer experience. Companies like Dropbox, KFC UK&I, ExpressVPN, Boden, OVO Energy, and Domino’s have turned to Compass to improve engineering velocity and operational readiness.
At Domino’s, the transition from project teams to product teams created challenges with context and unclear ownership. Engineers found themselves working on unfamiliar services with scattered documentation and metrics. By implementing Compass, Domino’s was able to consolidate component information, bring clarity to ownership, and help development managers track quality through metrics and scorecards. Their engineering teams particularly valued the component overview page and the ability to configure Jira projects with Compass components.
Similarly, Boden leveraged Compass to help their engineers work smarter and more efficiently, reducing the cognitive overhead that comes with managing complex distributed systems.
Empowering Teams with the Team Dashboard
Compass includes a dedicated team dashboard that empowers every engineer to work autonomously. This dashboard allows engineering teams to connect information across Atlassian cloud products and clearly outlines which teams are responsible for which components.
The team-centric approach provides several advantages for different roles within the organization:
For Individual Developers
Quick access to learn about software architecture, find component information, identify owners, and understand relationships between services. When incidents arise, developers can immediately identify who to engage and access all relevant context without searching through multiple tools.
For Engineering Managers
Visibility into operational status and health of components their teams own, ability to onboard new team members efficiently, and insights into areas that need attention. Scorecards help managers track quality and identify emerging trends—both positive and concerning—to inform planning and resource allocation.
For Platform Engineering Teams
The ability to codify and operationalize engineering best practices at scale, ensuring security, compliance, and reliability standards are maintained while giving individual teams autonomy in their implementation.
Why Compass Matters: The Developer Experience Imperative
In 2025, the importance of developer experience cannot be overstated. With the explosion of microservices, APIs, distributed teams, and frameworks, building world-class engineering teams has become as much a collaboration problem as a technology problem. Organizations that invest in developer experience see measurable improvements in:
- Developer Productivity: Reduced time spent searching for information and context-switching between tools
- Software Reliability: Better visibility into dependencies and operational health leads to faster incident resolution
- Engineering Culture: Clear ownership and standardized practices foster accountability and collaboration
- Time to Delivery: Templates and automated workflows accelerate the path from idea to production
- Developer Satisfaction: Removing friction from daily work improves morale and reduces burnout
Atlassian’s recognition as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for DevOps Platforms underscores the industry’s acknowledgment of how critical these capabilities have become for modern engineering organizations.
Partner with Padah Solutions: Your Atlassian Compass Implementation Experts
As an Atlassian Platinum Partner, Padah Solutions brings deep expertise in implementing and optimizing Atlassian tools across organizations of all sizes. Our team of certified solution architects understands that successful Compass adoption requires more than just technical deployment—it requires a strategic approach that aligns with your organization’s unique workflows, culture, and goals.
How Padah Solutions Can Help
Strategic Assessment and Planning
We begin by understanding your current software architecture landscape, identifying pain points, and mapping out a Compass implementation strategy that delivers quick wins while building toward long-term transformation. Our consultants work with your engineering leadership to define success metrics and create a phased rollout plan.
Implementation and Configuration
Our technical teams handle the complete setup of Compass, including catalog population, integration configuration with your existing toolchain, and customization of scorecards to reflect your organization’s standards. We ensure seamless integration with your existing Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket environments.
Custom Development and Extensibility
Need custom integrations or specialized functionality? Our Forge developers can build custom applications that extend Compass capabilities to meet your unique requirements. From proprietary tool integrations to specialized reporting dashboards, we help you maximize the platform’s potential.
Training and Enablement
Technology is only as effective as the people using it. Padah Solutions provides comprehensive training programs for developers, engineering managers, and platform teams to ensure your organization fully leverages Compass capabilities. We empower your teams with platform engineering best practices to get maximum value.
Ongoing Support and Optimization
Our partnership doesn’t end at implementation. Padah Solutions offers ongoing support services, including health checks, optimization recommendations, and assistance as your Compass usage matures and scales. We’re committed to your long-term success with the platform.
Contact Padah Solutions today to discuss how we can help transform your developer experience with Atlassian Compass. Let us help you give your engineering teams the foundation they deserve—the best friend they never knew they needed.
Embrace the Future of Developer Experience
The complexity of modern software development isn’t going away—if anything, it will continue to grow as organizations adopt more distributed architectures, cloud services, and specialized tools. The question isn’t whether to invest in developer experience, but how quickly you can establish a foundation that will scale with your engineering organization.
Atlassian Compass provides that foundation: a unified platform that reduces cognitive load, improves visibility, codifies best practices, and empowers teams to work autonomously while maintaining organizational standards. It’s the developer’s best friend they never knew they needed—until they experienced the transformation it enables.
Whether you’re just beginning to explore internal developer platforms or looking to mature your existing DevOps practices, Compass offers a path forward. And with Padah Solutions as your implementation partner, you have the expertise and support needed to make that journey successful.
Ready to transform your developer experience? Contact Padah Solutions today and discover how Compass can become your engineering team’s best friend.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1: What exactly is Atlassian Compass, and who is it for?
Atlassian Compass is a developer experience platform that provides a centralized view of your organization’s software components, their health, and the teams that maintain them. It’s designed for software development teams using distributed architectures, including individual developers who need to understand and navigate complex systems, engineering managers leading multiple teams, and platform engineering teams responsible for establishing standards and best practices.
Q2: How does Compass integrate with existing Atlassian tools like Jira and Confluence?
Compass is designed to complement Jira and integrate seamlessly with the Atlassian ecosystem. You can leverage integrations already configured in Jira (like Bitbucket Cloud or GitHub) to auto-populate your component catalog. Compass also connects with Confluence for documentation and provides team dashboards that connect information across Atlassian cloud products.
Q3: What are scorecards in Compass, and how do they work?
Scorecards are sets of weighted criteria that measure the health of your components against defined standards. Each criterion (such as having an owner assigned or documentation completed) has an associated weight, and all criteria add up to 100%. The resulting score shows how well each component meets your organization’s best practices. Compass includes pre-built templates like Component Readiness and DevOps Health scorecards, and you can create custom scorecards for your specific needs.
Q4: Can we customize Compass to fit our organization’s unique needs?
Absolutely. Compass is built with extensibility at its core. You can define custom metadata fields, create custom scorecards, and build custom integrations using Compass’s publicly accessible GraphQL API. For more advanced customization, Atlassian Forge allows you to build custom applications that extend the Compass UI and functionality while Atlassian handles infrastructure concerns.
Q5: How quickly can we get started with Compass?
Teams using GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab for source code management can set up their component catalog in minutes using automated integration apps. For organizations looking for a more comprehensive implementation with custom scorecards, integrations, and team training, partnering with an Atlassian Solution Partner like Padah Solutions can accelerate your time to value while ensuring best practices are followed.
Q6: What kind of metrics and insights does Compass provide?
Compass provides visibility into a range of metrics, including deployment frequency, build success rates, pull request cycle time, review time, and Mean Time to Restore (MTTR)—aligned with DORA metrics for measuring DevOps performance. The platform also shows dependency relationships, ownership information, recent activities, and component health scores based on your defined scorecards.
Q7: How does Compass help during incidents or on-call situations?
When an incident occurs, Compass serves as your first stop for investigation. From the affected component’s page, you can immediately see who owns the service, access relevant dashboards, view recent deployments that might have caused the issue, understand upstream and downstream dependencies that could be impacted, and find documentation and runbooks—all without searching through multiple tools or bookmarks.
Q8: Why should we consider partnering with Padah Solutions for Compass implementation?
As an Atlassian Platinum Partner, Padah Solutions brings proven expertise in implementing Atlassian tools across diverse organizations. We provide strategic planning, technical implementation, custom development, training, and ongoing support to ensure your Compass deployment delivers maximum value. Our solution architects understand both the technology and the organizational change management required for successful adoption.
