A note from Martin

Hi! Martin Stone here, Solutions Architect at Cortex. I helped bring this project to life, so wanted to share a bit about what it means to me, before diving into the details.

Throughout my career in software development, I've spent countless hours interacting with internal systems that just didn't cut it. They were outdated, hard to find, and scattered across various platforms. It seemed like the industry didn't really care about creating a dedicated, user-friendly, and low-maintenance internal system for software developers. I got the feeling that they thought we were all tech geniuses who could figure it out on our own.

When I first started working with Cortex, that was a turning point for me. Someone had finally gotten serious about building an internal system that's tailored to how we work. But everyone has their own way of doing things, and every software development practice has its own priorities. No one is going to create a perfect one-size-fits-all developer portal because that doesn't exist. That's why it's so important to give users the freedom to customize their experience.

At Cortex, plugins are a key part of that. They've unlocked incredible value for our biggest and most dedicated customers, but—by design—they’re more of a DIY project. We provide the tools and APIs, you build your own web component to get the experience you want.

But what if it could be just a bit easier? Actually a lot easier. With the launch of the Cortex Plugin Marketplace, we're opening the door to a new way of sharing experiences that let you customize your IDP, without doing all the dirty work yourself. Inside you’ll find a collection of plugins maintained by Cortex, along with an open environment for Cortex users to collaborate and share their plugin ideas and implementations. You can install plugins right from the Marketplace and use them immediately, or, because they're open-source, use them as a starting point for your own awesome plugin experience. Cortex customers will even be able to submit their own plugins for review and inclusion in the Marketplace.

Developing the Plugin Marketplace and the Cortex plugin collection has been an absolute blast, and I can't wait to see what our customers and partners come up with. Happy building!

What are Plugins (in Cortex)? 

The term “plugin” is used often in the IDP space, and can sometimes mean different things to different companies. Unlike our 50+ Cortex built and supported integrations, Cortex Plugins are built by customers to fully personalize their Internal Developer Portal. These embeddable experiences can be fed from any data source, and take on whatever appearance best complements your developer flow.

Whether you’re looking to transform data from an internal database, embed a key dashboard from your favorite analytics tool, serve up an auto-updating vulnerability report, or enable a compliance attestation module, Plugins can help.

Why a Plugin Marketplace? 

We believe your Internal Developer Portal must be a reflection of your current (or ideal!) business logic and processes. But we also know that building all that from scratch is incredibly time-consuming. That’s why our philosophy has always been to make the easy things, easy, and the hard things, possible. Plugins are no exception—making it possible to extend your experience beyond the structure Cortex provides out of the box.

The Plugin Marketplace is just one more way to remove the barrier in customizing that experience! It’s now easier than ever to find, share, and incorporate use cases without having to do all the heavy lifting yourself.

What Can You Build?

We’ve seen so many fantastic plugins already, and are adding more to the Marketplace every day. Anyone comfortable writing Typescript and React code can create plugins, and we provide a starting template for Cortex Plugins projects in Cortex’s code scaffolder. Here are just a few examples to spark your creativity:

Cost Management

Cost Insights: Visualize the cost footprint of each service relative to overall cloud spend, integrating this data into operational reviews. E.g. The team at CloudForecast built a plugin to help users visualize their AWS Cost Group reports from CloudForecast as an embedded view in Cortex entities. This plugin is now available in our marketplace!

Incident Response

Incident deep-dive: Embed a report or dashboard that provides even more context on incidents including documentation or runbooks. E.g. The PagerDuty Incidents Plugin enables users to view an entity’s recent open and resolved PagerDuty incidents, escalation policies, and responders. This plugin is also now available in our marketplace!

Also in our Marketplace, the ServiceNow Incidents Plugin displays ServiceNow incidents against a given entity.

Code Quality

Issues details: Make it easy for users to view and even comment on issues flagged by your favorite code quality solutions. E.g. The SonarQube Issues Plugin (yes, you guessed it—also in our marketplace) enables users to do just that.

Other plugins not yet in Marketplace (hint hint…)

Deployment Management

Deployment Dashboard: Provide an interactive dashboard to display deployment details and frequency within your Cortex UI. Users can also deploy directly to Jenkins through the interface.

Security and Compliance

Vulnerability Details: Display comprehensive results from vulnerability scanning tools within the Cortex UI, allowing engineers to assess vulnerabilities relevant to their services without switching applications.

Feedback Collection

Google Form Integration: Allow managers to collect feedback related to projects, programs, and initiatives directly within Cortex.

PTP Attestation: Still require some manual review of your entities? Embed a toggle form to have owners manually attest to various requirements.

Development Tools Integration

GitHub Issues Viewer: View issues in GitHub for a given repository, along with their statuses.

GitLab Registry Browser: Allows users to view all images and tags in their GitLab projects.

FAQs

Are marketplace plugins safe? 

All Plugins submitted to the Marketplace will be thoroughly reviewed and tested prior to listing. While Cortex can’t guarantee support on plugins where we might have limited understanding of source systems, we will always do our best to answer or direct questions you might have.

Can I control who can install marketplace plugins?

Yes. Access to install from the plugin Marketplace can be set by your RBAC team or role controls. A default setting is provided when the marketplace is installed, which can be modified by your organization.

Are marketplace plugins open source?

All Plugins in the Marketplace will be MIT licensed, enabling commercial use, modification, distribution, and private use. Cortex holds no liability or warranty for any plugin in the marketplace.

Can I update my plugin after it enters the Marketplace?

Yes. Simply fork the repo, create a new branch for your changes, write (and ensure the passing of) tests, update instructions, and submit a PR for Cortex to review!

Get Started

Ready to dive in? Visit our documentation on building plugins, as well as how to add to or pull from the marketplace following our code of conduct and governance requirements. Whether you're looking to enhance your IDP or contribute to the community, the Cortex Plugin Marketplace is your platform to innovate and collaborate.

Join us in shaping the future of [your] developer portal!