Templates everywhere: How we simplified development with Blueprints

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Developers crave speed, consistency, and simplicity—but achieving all three can be challenging, especially when dealing with complex infrastructures like EKS. At Aircall, we realized that one of the most effective ways to solve this problem was embracing templates—at every level of development.

Copying and pasting boilerplate or reinventing the wheel slows teams down. That’s why our developer portal “Airstage”, built on Backstage, leverages standardized templates to streamline project creation. With Cookiecutter templates, developers can scaffold new projects, push directly to repositories, and automatically follow internal standards—all in one smooth workflow. This approach saves time, reduces errors, and ensures consistency across teams.

Here’s how we made it work.

Helm Chart Blueprints: Simplifying Kubernetes for everyone

Managing Kubernetes manifests can be overwhelming—especially for developers who aren’t Kubernetes experts. Large manifests are easy to misconfigure: annotations can be forgotten, logging settings skipped, and ingress rules misapplied. To solve this, we created a Helm chart blueprint

Think of it as an abstraction layer over Kubernetes manifests. Instead of editing dozens of YAML files, developers can configure high-level values in a single values.yaml file. The blueprint automatically handles:

• Standardized annotations

• Logging configuration

• Ingress and autoscaling

• Resource limits and best practices

• Any other internal defaults

Here’s an example of how a developer might use the blueprint without worrying about the underlying complexity:

This means developers can deploy fully configured applications without worrying about the nitty-gritty details of Kubernetes. They get all the benefits of a properly configured cluster without the risk of mistakes or repeated boilerplate.

In short: it’s Kubernetes made simpler, safer, and faster—like a “one-click” setup for best practices.

Pipeline templates: Build smarter, not harder

Consistency doesn’t stop at Kubernetes. Our pipeline templates handle everything from feature branches to main deployments, including:

• Optimized Docker images

• CI/CD best practices, policy compliance (policy as code), and security by default (security gates)

• Branch-specific testing and deployment rules

With these templates, developers no longer need to remember every step or worry about breaking workflows. It just works—every time.

Cookiecutter templates: The whole project in one click

We didn’t stop at Helm charts or pipelines. Our Cookiecutter templates let developers scaffold an entire project—including infrastructure, CI/CD, and application code—with a single command.

Through Airstage, our Backstage implementation, developers can kick off new projects without the repetitive setup. They simply choose their preferred language—like Python or JavaScript—and start with a baseline that already follows all internal standards. The result? Fully deployable projects, automated pipelines, and best practices baked in—right from the first commit.

Terraform modules: Templates for infrastructure

Terraform modules aren’t technically templates—but they function like them. Think of them as reusable building blocks, similar to npm packages, that encapsulate common infrastructure patterns.

For example, our IRSA module simplifies IAM role creation for EKS. These modules allow teams to enforce best practices while keeping infrastructure code DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself).

The balance: Templates aren’t a silver bullet

Templates speed up development and reduce boilerplate—but they can’t solve everything. Developers still need to think critically, architect carefully, and innovate on top of the baseline.

Our templates provide a solid foundation while leaving room for customization. They accelerate setup, enforce standards, and prevent common mistakes—but they don’t replace creative problem-solving.

Why templates matter

EKS is powerful—but spinning up a new project without guidance can be tricky. With our multi-level templates and reusable modules, we’ve made it:

• Fast: Spin up projects in minutes instead of hours

• Consistent: Avoid errors and enforce best practices

• Reliable: Get fully deployable projects with one command

Another huge advantage is centralized updates. When improvements or bug fixes are made to a template, every project that uses it benefits automatically. That means less maintenance, fewer errors, and more time to build features.

The takeaway

Templates and modules aren’t just convenient—they’re transformative. By standardizing Helm charts, pipelines, project scaffolding, and Terraform modules, we’ve made development faster, safer, and more predictable.

But here’s the key: they are a foundation, not a cage. They give developers a head start while preserving flexibility, creativity, and innovation. With templates, we don’t just reduce boilerplate—we empower engineers to focus on what truly matters: building great software.

Take a look at more of our Tech Team Stories for what goes on behind the scenes at Aircall.

Published on August 29, 2025.