Works with
Gate your scorecards on measured code, not self-declared checks.
Soundcheck, Cortex and OpsLevel drive adoption of your own standards: org-defined checks over portal facts, rolled into tracks, levels and certifications. None of them reads the code, and the bar is yours to set. Watchdog is the independent measurement underneath — wire the CAI and per-lens scores in as facts, and a track stops being a checklist someone ticked.
Your standards · our measurement · nobody marking their own homework.
IDP scorecards sit at system altitude under Compliance & Risk — high on the map, but grading conformance to standards you wrote, not the code itself.
Better together
A scorecard is only as honest as the facts behind it.
What the portal does
Soundcheck (Spotify's Backstage plugin), Cortex and OpsLevel all play the same position: they collect facts about a service from your portal and your pipelines, evaluate org-defined checks over them, and roll the results into tracks, levels and certifications your platform team owns.
What it cannot do
It never reads the code. A check like “has tests” is satisfied by a file existing, not by the tests being worth anything — and every bar is one your own team set, which is exactly the thing a buyer or an auditor will not accept as independent.
What we contribute
The CAI and its per-lens scores, pushed in through Soundcheck's HTTP fact collector (or the equivalent API on Cortex and OpsLevel). Your tracks then gate on a measured, reproducible, commit-pinned number that nobody in the org can move by editing a check.
Which one, when
Your standards. Our measurement.
- If you need…
- Reach for…
- Watchdog's role
- To drive adoption of your own engineering standards
- Soundcheck · Cortex · OpsLevel
- The independent code measurement your checks gate on — the CAI as a fact source
- A service catalogue and ownership metadata
- Backstage
- None — we read repositories, not the portal
- A bar the team cannot quietly lower
- Watchdog
- A versioned rubric; any score-moving change bumps the version
- Evidence a buyer or auditor will accept
- Watchdog
- A signed, commit-pinned delivery anyone can re-verify
The portal owns the bar. We own the number it reads.
Give your tracks something they cannot fake.
Sign in with GitHub · no card · seventeen languages, each with its coverage on the record.