What

Golden Paths are a deceptively simple concept with outsized impact. At their core, they’re a set of well supported, opinionated defaults, designed to accelerate delivery by reducing decision fatigue.

They don’t just improve velocity, they build consistency, reduce cognitive load, and align teams with the broader technical strategy, especially in organisations with many moving parts.

Golden Paths are typically owned by platform or architecture teams in collaboration with EMs and Staff+ engineers. Their job is to create and maintain sensible defaults that reflect both current best practices and the evolving needs of the business.

How

The first step in creating a Golden Path is understanding your current landscape. A great way to start is with a technology radar, a collaborative way to map out what's being used, what’s working, and what should be phased out.

From there, look for patterns in friction. Are teams debating frameworks? Struggling to automate CVEs? Unsure how to scaffold new services?

That’s where the Golden Path comes in. Pick the defaults that solve 80% of those pain points—whether that’s standardising on Kotlin + http4k, using Renovate for dependency updates, or encouraging Cursor for AI-assisted coding.

Reinforce these defaults with templates, tooling, or office hours—anything that turns guidance into action.

Golden Paths aren’t about rigid control, they’re about enabling teams to move faster with fewer decisions. When done well, they create alignment, reduce duplicated effort, and let engineers focus on delivering value rather than reinventing setup scripts.