Learning Paths

Pick a course based on your role. A course is a curated selection of units — it's pure curation (this file), not a folder. Units are the reusable building blocks; the same unit appears in more than one course, and a course takes units in whatever order fits. Or complete every unit in order for the full picture.

One unit = one modality. Each unit stays in a single modality — UI, CLI, embedded coding, or extension coding — and never makes you switch mid-unit. Switching between units inside a course is fine (that's an explicit unit boundary). Where another modality is relevant, a unit links to its sibling rather than opening a second track inline.

The units

Unit	Modality	What it covers
Unit 0: Foundations	— (concepts)	What Bowire is · the two deployment shapes · how the bootcamp works
Unit 1: The Workbench — first contact	UI	Discover, invoke, multi-protocol, streaming
Unit 2: The Workbench — record, mock, assert, cover	UI	Record/replay, schema mocks, Flow assertions, coverage, Intercept rail
Unit 3: CLI & operations	CLI	Install, mock/test+CI, mcp serve, reverse-proxy, deploy, observe, workspaces
Unit 4: Embed Bowire	embedded coding	AddBowire/MapBowire, embedded MCP, interceptor middleware
Unit 5: Extend Bowire	extension coding	Protocol plugin, sidecar, UI extension, plugin lifecycle

Courses

1. Workbench & API operator (User)

For: developers, frontend engineers, QA, AI/agent operators who use Bowire to drive APIs.

graph LR
    U0[Unit 0<br/>Foundations] --> U1[Unit 1<br/>Workbench] --> U2[Unit 2<br/>Record/Mock/Assert]

Units: 0 → 1 → 2. Cross-links into Unit 3 where a scriptable equivalent (bowire mock / bowire test) helps.

→ Capstone: User — a .bww workspace + diagnosis runbook that extends the Harbor domain.

2. Integrator / DevOps / Administrator

For: platform engineers, SREs, DevOps — anyone shipping Bowire into CI and non-laptop environments.

graph LR
    U0[Unit 0<br/>Foundations] --> U3[Unit 3<br/>CLI & Ops]
    U3 -.inspect.-> U2[Unit 2<br/>Intercept rail]

Units: 0 → 3. Cross-links into Unit 2 (the Intercept rail) for inspecting captured traffic.

→ Capstone: Administrator — a docker-compose / k8s stack + production runbook over the Harbor domain.

3. Developer — embed & extend

For: backend developers embedding Bowire, plugin authors, core contributors.

graph LR
    U0[Unit 0<br/>Foundations] --> U1[Unit 1<br/>Workbench] --> U4[Unit 4<br/>Embed] --> U5[Unit 5<br/>Extend]

Units: 0 → 1 → 4 → 5. Cross-links into Unit 3 (the CLI as a verification tool).

→ Capstone: Developer — ship a NuGet plugin that extends the Harbor domain.

4. (Optional) QA / tester

Units: 0 → 2 (assertions + coverage) → 3 (bowire test in CI). Reuses the operator + CLI units for a testing-first path.

Or: the full bootcamp

Complete every unit in order — 0 → 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → your capstone.

Prerequisites (everything):

• .NET 10 SDK
• Bowire CLI: dotnet tool install --global Kuestenlogik.Bowire.Tool (Unit 3)
• An ASP.NET host + dotnet add package Kuestenlogik.Bowire (Unit 4) and dotnet new bowire-plugin template (Unit 5)
• Sample services from Bowire.Samples (Harbor harbor-demo/ + per-plugin protocols/)
• Claude Desktop or Cursor (Unit 3.3 only) · Python 3.10+ (Unit 5.2 only) · Docker (Unit 3 CI/deploy)