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Soundcheck

Overview​

Soundcheck measures and provides incentives to improve the quality, reliability, and alignment of your software ecosystem. With Soundcheck, engineering organizations define development and operational standards and then use those standards to measure the health of their software components. Soundcheck provides teams with strong guidance to cultivate behavior and improve an organization's DevOps practices. Use Soundcheck to prioritize and visualize tech health and alignment to organizational best practices within Portal.

There are 5 fundamental elements that make up Soundcheck:

  • Check: A standard or best practice a component is graded against.
  • Check Result: The result of running a check against a component. Results are either pass or fail.
  • Track: A long-term tech health initiative.
  • Level: A group of checks that represent a milestone within a track.
  • Certification: The outcome of passing all checks within a level.

Together, they show you how any given software component is performing against your organization's long-term tech health initiatives.

Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation.

Getting started​

Enabling Soundcheck​

You can enable Soundcheck in Portal by following the steps outlined in the Setup Guide. You also have the option to enable or disable Soundcheck at any time through the Config Manager.

Pre-Loaded Checks, Tracks and Integrations​

To help get you started, Soundcheck comes with a set of pre-loaded checks, tracks and integrations similar to those used at Spotify. These checks, tracks and integrations are intended to be a starting point for you to build upon and customize to fit your organization's needs. They can be modified or deleted as needed, or keep them as they are!

Managing Checks​

You can view and manage pre-loaded checks by going to Soundcheck > Checks. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Checks - Managing checks via the no-code UI.

Pre-Loaded Checks

Managing Tracks​

You can view and manage pre-loaded tracks by going to Soundcheck > Tracks. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Tracks - Managing tracks via the no-code UI.

Pre-Loaded Tracks

Managing Integrations​

Soundcheck within Portal comes with the following integrations which are used to collect facts for use with checks:

GitHub and SCM integrations are enabled by default to power the pre-loaded checks and tracks included with Soundcheck. Other integrations must be configured before you can start using them with checks.

You can view and manage integrations by going to Soundcheck > Integrations. For each integration you can choose which facts to collect, how often to collect them, for which entities the facts should be collected, and if those facts should be stored in cache and for how long. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Configuring a fact collector (integration) via the no-code UI.

Integrations

GitHub Integration​

To modify the GitHub integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > GitHub and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - GitHub.

Soundcheck - GitHub Integration Configuration

SCM Integration​

To modify the SCM integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > SCM and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - Source Control Management.

Soundcheck - SCM Integration Configuration

Datadog Integration​

As a prerequisite to enabling the Datadog integration, you must configure your Datadog instance details. Go to Config Manager > Soundcheck and enter the baseUrl, appKey and apiKey under soundcheck.collectors.datadog.

Soundcheck - Datadog Integration Authorization

To enable the Datadog integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > Datadog and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - Datadog.

Soundcheck - Datadog Integration Configuration

Note: The datadoghq.com/service-id entity annotation is required for Datadog integration to work. If it's missing the facts won't be collected for an entity.

Jira Integration​

As a prerequisite to enabling the Jira integration, you must configure your Jira instance details. Go to Config Manager > Soundcheck and enter the baseUrl, username and apiToken under soundcheck.collectors.jira.

Soundcheck - Jira Integration Authorization

To enable the Jira integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > Jira and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - Jira.

Soundcheck - Jira Integration Configuration

Kubernetes Integration​

As a prerequisite to enabling the Kubernetes integration, you must configure your Kubernetes instance details. Go to Config Manager > Kubernetes and enter the details according to the backstage Kubernetes plugin docs.

Additionally, you can configure Google authentication by going to Config Manager > Soundcheck and entering jsonKey under soundcheck.collectors.kubernetes.google.

Soundcheck - Kubernetes Integration Authorization

To enable the Kubernetes integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > Kubernetes and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - Kubernetes.

Soundcheck - Kubernetes Integration Configuration

PagerDuty Integration​

As a prerequisite to enabling the PagerDuty integration, you must configure your PagerDuty instance details. Go to Config Manager > Soundcheck and enter the server and token under soundcheck.collectors.pagerduty.

Soundcheck - PagerDuty Integration Authorization

To enable the PagerDuty integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > PagerDuty and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - PagerDuty.

Soundcheck - PagerDuty Integration Configuration

Note: Either pagerduty.com/service-id or pagerduty.com/integration-key entity annotation is required for PagerDuty integration to work. If it's missing the facts won't be collected for an entity.

SonarQube Integration​

As a prerequisite to enabling the SonarQube integration, you must configure your SonarQube instance details. Go to Config Manager > Soundcheck and enter the baseUrl and either token or username and password under soundcheck.collectors.sonarqube.

Soundcheck - SonarQube Integration Authorization

To enable the SonarQube integration, go to Soundcheck > Integrations > SonarQube and click the Configure button. Find out more in the Soundcheck plugin documentation - Fact Collectors - Third Party Integrations - SonarQube.

Soundcheck - SonarQube Integration Configuration

Note: The sonarqube.org/project-key entity annotation is required for SonarQube integration to work. If it's missing the facts won't be collected for an entity.