Onboarding Checklist
Access requests, onboarding tasks, and criteria for your first PR.
This page covers what the other Getting Started guides do not: who to ask for access, which systems to request, and when you're ready to contribute.
Install steps live in Local Development Setup. The stack map lives in Getting Started Overview. Use this page as a trackable checklist — work through it in whatever order your team suggests.
Your onboarding buddy (named in your welcome email) unblocks anything stuck waiting on access.
Checklist
Access & communication
- Company SSO and password manager set up
- GitHub org access (
uxdl) requested — access table below - Slack joined:
#engineering,#engineering-support,#deployments - Onboarding buddy intro — confirm team (Frontend / Backend / Mobile) and primary repos
Local environment
- Toolchain installed — Local Development Setup
- Repos cloned,
pnpm install --frozen-lockfilesucceeds -
.env.localcreated from.env.example— Environment Variables - Smoke test passes (lint, typecheck, test, dev) on your primary repo(s)
- IDE & Tooling configured in Cursor
Learn the platform
Everyone
- Getting Started Overview — stack map and environments
- System Overview and Authentication Flow
- Development Workflow — Alpha → Beta → Prod
Frontend
- Frontend Overview
- Authentication (Cognito)
- FCM web client — if your app uses push
Backend
- Backend Overview
- Folder Structure and API Authentication for your language — Node or Python
- Your team's database guide under Data Layer
Process & first PR
- Branching & Pull Requests read
- Browsed open PRs in your team's repo — noted review style and CI checks
- Shadowed a code review or pairing session
- Picked a task (
good-first-issueor buddy-assigned) - Opened a draft PR — Alpha preview URL appears on the PR (Environments)
System access
Request these early — some approvals take 1–2 business days.
| System | Needed for | Request via | Typical SLA |
|---|---|---|---|
GitHub (uxdl org) | All engineers | IT portal | 1 business day |
| AWS SSO (dev profile) | Backend, S3, ECS deploys | Manager approval | 2 business days |
| AWS Cognito (console read) | Auth debugging | Team lead | Same day |
| Firebase Console | FCM push setup | Mobile / platform lead | Same day |
| Sentry | Error monitoring | Team lead | Same day |
| Axiom | Log search | Team lead | Same day |
| Vercel (frontend teams) | Preview deploys | Team lead | Same day |
| Secrets vault | Production keys | Security team | 2 business days |
Ready to contribute
You're set when all of these are true:
- Local smoke test passes on your primary repo(s)
- You understand Alpha → Beta → Prod promotion
- At least one draft PR is open (or merged)
- You know who to ask in Slack for your team
- Sentry and Axiom accounts work (verify with a test error or log query)
Go deeper
- Frontend or Backend — full stack guides for your team
- Playwright setup — if your team owns E2E tests
- Integrations Overview — when you touch a third-party service