The SDLC map · 1970 to 2030

Each era made one phase cheap. Then the bottleneck moved.

D macro / micro / graph · V view · 1–6 eras · ←→ step · L lens · C compare · P play · Open the book · Home

Bottleneck
The signal of the era

How to read it. The human, automation and AI shares and the bottleneck heat are our illustrative estimates, not measurements [C]. Click any phase for its full story across all six eras, or open the micro view for every phase of one era on one page, and any mark for the evidence. Pre-2021 history is background, not part of the book's verified research. 2027 to 2030 is a scenario, the base case from chapter 19. The Intelligence view follows chapter 13's intelligence stack.
State of Software Engineering 2026The SDLC map
State of Software Engineering 2026

The SDLC Evolution Canvas

The companion to the bookCode is cheap. Trust isn’t.Open the book →Home

Fifty years of software delivery in one place. Nine phases, six eras, 1970 to 2030: who does the work, where it sticks, and how the bottleneck moved.

Waterfall 1970backgroundAgile 2001backgroundDevOps & cloud 2009backgroundAI-assisted 2021ch 1, 6Agentic 2025 · nowch 2 to 9Governed delegation 2027+ch 13 to 16, 19
Same evidence marks and sources as the book. Shares and bottleneck marks are our illustrative estimates [C]. Press 1, 2 or 3 to open a view.