Unicorn Project

What is Unicorn Project, and what’s in it for you.

Unicorn Project Overview

Unicorn Project has two parts:

  • Unicorn Workshop, that helps you become a Cloud Ninja. Go to workshop.
  • Unicorn Pursuit, an open source project voting web we are building together, scheduled for launch in June, 2020 at the URL https://www.unicornpursuit.com

Eager to start your Ninja Training? Click here, and start the Unicorn Project Workshop

Inspired by Gene Kim

In case you were wondering, the inspiration for this blog post was Gene Kims amazing Unicorn Project book, which I’ve already read twice.

Unicorn Project

Maxine, the protagonist, organizes a kind of “let’s have employees propose their ideas” game in Parts Unlimited. When I tried to do a similar thing in my company, the first thing I wanted to do is create a Web page where employees would Submit and Vote for their favorite project. It was a big surprise that nothing that I found in the Open Source community could be used, and that’s where the entire idea comes from.

Combine this with my lifelong passion to learn, and help others learn, and you’ve got a winner - my personal unicorn project was born.

What is Unicorn Project?

Unicorn Project is an open source project for a customizable web page where users submit and vote for proposals.

Unicorn Technology Stack

This is super important. There is a non-negotiable technology stack, that was chosen in 2020 as the best of breed for designing dynamic web applications in the Cloud.

  • Cloud Infrastructure: Amazon Web Services, AWS
  • Infrasctructure as Code (IaC): AWS Cloud Development Kit, AWS CDK, in Python
  • Web Development, Application: Go
  • Web Development, Frontend: PENDING (Currently HTML and CSS only)
  • Source Code Management (SCM): GitHub
  • Continuous Integration and Deployment/Development: PENDING (Jenkins being the obvious candidate)

Where do I find the Unicorn Code

please go to the Unicorn GitHub Repository, Fork it, create a new branch, and start using it.

What’s the purpose of Unicorn Project

Unicorn Project has two objectives:

  • Provide a submit-and-vote web for those who need it.
  • Help you learn, step by step, how the production-ready applications are designed in the cloud.

What I should have in mind if I want to contribute

Always remembed the two rules of Unicorn:

  • FOCUS, meaning - we’re doing production ready, not “hello world” coding.
  • SIMPLICITY, meanign - we always choose the simplest and most concise way to explain something about the design or implementation of Unicorn.

How Unicorn Project can help you become a Cloud

We strongly encourage everyone to clone the Unicorn repository, and follow the “Become a Cloud Ninja” Section of Mats Cloud like a Workshop.

Yes, it’s a long and complex workshop, but if you use actual code, and play with it in order to understand how everything works, and build something a bit different - we promisse you that you will learn much more about the entire Technology Stack then anywhere else.

Unicorn Pursuit: Requirements

Business and Technical Requirements

Unicorn Pursuit: Architecture

Cloud and Software: Web Application Architecture

Unicorn Workshop

Bookmark this page. You will use it as a home page or Agenda for the Unicorn Workshop.

Collaborate on Unicorn Project

Want to contribute on Unicorn Project? Awesome! Here is everything you need to know.


Last modified April 29, 2020: aws cdk added (2d4eeb3)