Tech Radar

A simple, configurable Technology Radar application for communicating an organisation's technology strategy.

A Technology Radar provides a visual framework for communicating an organisation's view of technology. Rather than simply cataloguing technologies, it communicates strategic direction by identifying which technologies are recommended for adoption, which are being evaluated, and which should be avoided.

Technology Radars help architecture and engineering teams communicate technical priorities, encourage informed discussion, and provide consistent guidance for technology decisions. They also provide a useful reference point when planning future initiatives.

This project is a lightweight, browser-based implementation written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making it easy to host as a static website using GitHub Pages.

Unlike many Technology Radar implementations, this project supports multiple configurable radars from a single application, making it suitable for engineering, architecture, enterprise, platform, security, or other technology domains.

Technology Radars are commonly used to:

• Communicate technology strategy.
• Share architectural standards and guidance.
• Highlight emerging technologies worth exploring.
• Identify technologies that should be adopted, monitored, or retired.
• Encourage consistency across engineering teams.
• Support technology governance and decision-making.

Features

• Multiple configurable radars.
• Interactive search and technology highlighting.
• Zoom directly to individual quadrants.
• Light and dark themes.
• Configurable rings and quadrants.
• JSON-based radar configuration.
• Static deployment with no backend dependencies.

Radar Structure

Every Technology Radar consists of four rings and four quadrants, creating sixteen segments in which technologies are positioned.

The names and descriptions of both the rings and quadrants are configurable for each radar, allowing organisations to tailor the radar to their own terminology and governance model. However, every radar must define exactly four rings and four quadrants.

Rings

The four rings represent an organisation's recommendation or level of confidence in a technology.

A common set of rings is:

Ring	Description
Adopt	Technologies that are proven, well understood, and recommended for production use.
Trial	Technologies that have demonstrated value and are suitable for wider evaluation or controlled adoption.
Assess	Technologies that warrant investigation and experimentation before broader adoption.
Hold	Technologies that should generally be avoided for new work or are being phased out.

The names, and descriptions of the rings are fully configurable.

Quadrants

The four quadrants group related technologies into categories.

Common examples include:

• Languages & Frameworks
• Platforms
• Infrastructure
• Tools

Quadrant names and descriptions are fully configurable, allowing each radar to represent different organisational domains or technology landscapes.

Configuration

The application is driven entirely by JSON configuration.

The radars/radars.json file defines the available radars, the default radar, and the files that should be loaded.

{
  "default": "engineering",
  "radars": [
    {
      "id": "engineering",
      "label": "Engineering",
      "file": "engineering.json"
    }
  ]
}

Each radar is then defined in its own JSON file.

radars/
├── radars.json
├── engineering.json
├── architecture.json
└── enterprise.json

A radar configuration contains:

• General information (title, caption, date).
• Four configurable quadrants.
• Four configurable rings.
• A collection of radar entries.

Each entry specifies:

• The quadrant it belongs to.
• The ring it belongs to.
• A label.
• A short description.
• An optional movement indicator.
• An optional hyperlink.

For example:

{
  "label": "Dapr",
  "quadrant": 2,
  "ring": 1,
  "reason": "Simplifies service-to-service communication.",
  "moved": 1,
  "link": "https://docs.dapr.io"
}

Adding a new radar simply requires:

1. Creating a new radar JSON file.
2. Adding an entry to radars.json.

Movement

Each entry can include an optional moved value to show how it has changed since the previous radar.

Value	Marker	Meaning
omitted or 0	●	No movement or movement not specified
1	▲	Moved in, moved up, or increased confidence
-1	▼	Moved out, moved down, or reduced confidence
2	★	New or notable item

Display Options

The appearance of the radar can be customised using URL query parameters. These are useful when embedding the radar in documentation or presenting a simplified view.

Parameter	Default	Description
radar	Default radar	Selects the radar to display.
sidebar	true	Shows or hides the full sidebar.
entries	true	Shows or hides the entries section.
guidance	true	Shows or hides the guidance section.
controls	true	Shows or hides the toolbar.
title	true	Shows or hides the radar title, caption and date.
theme	system	Sets the theme (light, dark or system).

Examples

Display the Enterprise radar:

?radar=enterprise

Hide the guidance section:

?guidance=false

Show only the radar and legend:

?controls=false&guidance=false

Force the dark theme:

?theme=dark

Combine multiple options:

?radar=architecture&theme=dark&guidance=false

Running Locally

Clone the repository and serve the project using any local web server.

For example:

bash python -m http.server

Then browse to:

http://localhost:8000

Hosting

The tech-radar is entirely static and can be hosted using GitHub Pages or any web server capable of serving static content.

Acknowledgements

This project was inspired by the excellent Zalando Tech Radar and the Thoughtworks Technology Radar.

While the concept and overall approach draw inspiration from Zalando's work, this implementation has been substantially rewritten with its own codebase, data format, configuration model, and user interface.