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Dojo Getting Started

The Fawkes Dojo is a structured learning programme for platform engineering teams. Inspired by martial arts belt systems, it provides a progressive curriculum that takes developers from platform awareness to platform mastery.

The Belt System

Each belt represents a level of demonstrated competency. Belts are earned, not given — each requires completing the learning module and passing a practical assessment.

Belt Colour Topic Duration
White Belt ⬜ What is an IDP? DORA metrics fundamentals 1–2 weeks
Yellow Belt 🟨 CI fundamentals, Jenkins shared library 2–3 weeks
Green Belt 🟩 GitOps with ArgoCD, Kubernetes 3–4 weeks
Brown Belt 🟫 Observability, SRE practices 4–6 weeks
Black Belt ⬛ Platform product thinking, advanced IDP 6–8 weeks

How to Enrol

  1. Talk to your team lead or platform team to get access to the dojo environment.
  2. Start with the White Belt module.
  3. Complete the exercises in order. Each module builds on the previous one.
  4. Book an assessment session with a belt-holder when you feel ready.

What to Expect

Each module contains: - Concepts — Background reading and explanations - Exercises — Hands-on tasks in the sandbox environment - Assessment — A short practical that demonstrates your competency

Assessments are conducted by a team member who holds the same or higher belt. There is no time limit on completing a module — go at your own pace.

Time Commitment

Most learners spend 2–4 hours per week on dojo activities alongside their regular work. Some teams run dedicated "dojo days" where the whole team works through a module together.

Belt-Holders as Mentors

Belt-holders are expected to help others working toward the same belt. If you are stuck on an exercise, reach out in the Discourse dojo category or the #dojo Mattermost channel.

Sandbox Environment

Each learner gets access to a shared sandbox Kubernetes cluster with all Fawkes components installed. The sandbox is reset weekly, so commit your work to Git.

# Connect to the dojo sandbox
kubectl config use-context fawkes-dojo
kubectl get pods -n my-namespace

See Also