The problem
A new service used to start as a copy of the last new service. Whatever that repository had drifted into — an old CI action, a missing health endpoint, a Dockerfile with a root user — became the starting point for the next one.
What it is
Forge is an internal CLI that generates a service from a template the platform team owns. The generated repository already has migrations, a test pipeline, structured logging, a health endpoint, a Dockerfile and an environment manifest.
Design rule
If a convention matters, it is in the template. A document that says "remember to add the health check" is a convention that will be forgotten; a template that already has one is a convention that cannot be skipped.
Outcome
Bootstrap time went from two weeks of copy-paste and review to under an hour, and platform review now starts from a known shape.