ACF Automated Code Formation Engineering Excellence
Article Summary
Walmart's engineering team cut time-to-market for cloud self-service platforms from 26 weeks to under 2 weeks. Here's the framework that made it possible.
The team built ACF (Automated Code Formation), a code generation framework that orchestrates micro-applications and infrastructure as code. It automatically generates UI screens, backend APIs, database schemas, Terraform modules, and deployment workflows from spec files and templates.
Key Takeaways
- Reduced MTTM from 26 weeks to less than 2 weeks for cloud platforms
- Framework generates entire stack: UI, APIs, DB schemas, Terraform, and workflows
- Uses Jinja2 templates with spec files to create plug and play applications
- Automated CI/CD with unit tests, integration tests, and Sonar coverage
- Built on 6 components: templates, spec files, ER models, libraries, asset builder, deployment
Critical Insight
Walmart created a self-serve code generation engine that slashed cloud platform delivery time by 92% while standardizing the entire development lifecycle.
