Create, view, update, and delete components

Create a component

A component is an output artifact of your engineering team. It could be a service, a library, an application, or something else.

A component’s catalog listing in Compass is the unified view of all information about the component. The first step to build a component catalog is to create components.

To create a new component:

1. In Compass, in the top navigation bar, select Create > Create component.
2. Select a component type.
   • Choose the type carefully. You cannot change it after creating the component.
3. Enter the component’s name.
4. Select an owner for your component.
   • Although adding a component owner is optional, we highly recommend that you add one. Learn more about why adding an owner is important
   • If the owner team doesn’t exist yet, that's okay. Select + Start a team to create and assign a team to the component right away. Or, you can create your component now, start a new team later, and then assign it to the component when you are ready.
5. Select Create.

We’ll add your component to the catalog and take you to the component’s details page, where you can add detailed information such as links to repositories and documentation, chat channels, dependencies, and more.

View a component's details

A component's details page is the single place in Compass where you’ll find everything you want to know about your component. In the details page, you’ll find what the component does, who owns it and how to contact them, its links and dependencies, scores, and more.

To view your component’s details, use any of the following methods:

• In the component catalog, locate your component and select its name. You’ll need to go to the page specific to the type of your component. For example, if your component is a library, from the left navigation bar, select Libraries.
• Search for the component and select its name in the search results.
• Search for the team that owns your component. On the team’s dashboard, from the Team components list, select the component’s name.

When you view a component, you'll first see the overview page. This page groups the key details about the component.

1. Basic details: This section is the first place the users look when they view a component’s details. It shows the component’s basic details such as its name and description. For service-type component's the tier appears here.

2. Owner team: The owner team’s card showing the team’s information appears here. An owner team has a defined responsibility towards managing a component. You can assign or change a component’s ownership from this section.

3. Component contacts: Links to the owner team’s chat channel appear here. Additionally, for services, links to the component's on-call roster also appear here. These links give you access to the people who can provide help with the component or support you during an incident.

4. Scorecards: The scorecards you apply to a component appear here. Scorecards show a component’s health based on set criteria.

5. Resource links, labels, and metrics: Links to a component’s resources, such as repositories, documentation, projects, and more, appear in this section. More details, such as labels and metrics are also available here.

6. Component navigation: Pages providing more information about the component appear here. Some of these pages are available by default, for example Activity or Dependencies. Whereas, some pages become available when you install different apps on Compass, for example, Swagger UI.

Component types

Component types help you categorize your components based on their capabilities. Every component in Compass has a type. You set a component’s type when creating its catalog listing in Compass.

The following component types are available in Compass:

Service

The Service type models an independently deployable software unit that is usually is operated by a person or a team. Services can be as large as monoliths or smaller microservices.

Library

The Library type models a reusable collection of objects, functions, and methods. A library is typically used by other components.

Application

The Application type models a fully-packaged application like a mobile application, desktop application, or a CLI type tool.

Other

The Other type generically models any software component. Use this type when your component does not categorize as any of the specific component types available in Compass.

Attributes per component types

Each component type has attributes that apply to all components of that type. Attributes help you record a component's details in its catalog listing.

The following attributes are available per component type:

To keep your component’s catalog listing up-to-date, start adding the attribute values. Learn how to add a component's details