In April 2026, Atlassian starts phasing out Compass and transitions its functionality to DX Fabric, following Atlassian’s acquisition of DX. Existing Compass customers will be required to migrate to DX Fabric over time.
Summary
- Atlassian is retiring Compass and replacing it with DX Fabric
- Compass catalogs and scorecards will move to DX Fabric
- DX Fabric introduces new visibility into software health and AI impact
- Compass customers must transition, with guided support and advance notice
- No immediate access changes, migration will be phased
- DX Fabric becomes Atlassian’s new platform for engineering insight and improvement
What is changing?
Atlassian is evolving its internal developer platform strategy. Compass, which focused on service cataloging, ownership, and basic health scorecards, is being phased out.
Its core capabilities will be delivered through DX Fabric, a broader platform designed to:
- track software health end‑to‑end
- analyze developer productivity and experience
- measure how AI affects delivery speed, quality, and reliability
Compass will therefore no longer be Atlassian’s strategic platform for tracking services and ownership.
In Atlassian communication, naming is used as follows
- DX = the product experience customers use (successor of Compass functionality)
- DX Fabric = the analytical and integration layer connecting signals across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
What is DX Fabric?
DX Fabric is Atlassian’s new platform for understanding, measuring, and improving how engineering organizations build software, especially in AI‑assisted development environments.
Compared to Compass, DX Fabric extends beyond static documentation and ownership maps. It acts as an intelligence layer across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), providing:
- Context for human developers and AI agents
- Continuous measurement of delivery health and flow
- Insights into AI impact on engineering outcomes
DX Fabric builds on Compass concepts but shifts the focus from documentation to continuous improvement.
Key difference at a glance (Compass vs. DX Fabric)
| Topic | Compass | DX Fabric | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main purpose | Document services and ownership | Measure and improve software delivery | |
| Typical question | “Who owns this service?” | “Which services cause problems or slow us down?” | |
| Service catalog | Manually maintained list of services, owners, repositories, and documentation links | Same catalog, plus live data on deployments, failures, and delivery speed | |
| Health view | Manual checklists and reviews | Automatic signals from pipelines, incidents, and code | |
| Update model | Updated manually | Continuously updated | |
| Problem handling | Humans interpret dashboards | Risks and weak services are flagged automatically. Signals can trigger follow‑up actions. | |
| AI visibility | No insight into AI usage | Shows where AI is used and compares delivery metrics before and after. Measures impact on cycle time, quality, and reliability. |
|
What happens to existing Compass functionality?
For existing Compass customers:
- Software catalogs will migrate to DX Fabric
- Scorecards and health metrics will be recreated within DX
- DX becomes the single place to:
- track services and ownership
- measure software health
- evaluate productivity and AI impact
Compass itself will be phased out, but there will be:
- a guided migration path
- technical and commercial transition support
- early communication before any disruptive change
Are you affected by this change?
You are affected if:
- you actively use Compass today
- Compass is your source of truth for service ownership or software health
- you rely on Compass scorecards for governance or engineering standards
You are not immediately affected if:
- you do not use Compass
- Compass is not critical to your software governance model
- you already use DX or similar engineering intelligence tooling
There is no immediate loss of access, but Compass customers will need to plan a transition.
Licensing Atlassian DX
Atlassian DX is licensed as a cloud-based subscription. It can either be obtained
- as part of the Software Collection license (includes Rovo Dev, DX, Pipelines, Bitbucket, and Compass), or
- as a standalone license.
Why Atlassian is making this change now
Software delivery has changed significantly:
- AI is now embedded across planning, coding, testing, and operations
- Engineering leaders want to measure real AI impact
- Software health needs to be assessed continuously, instead of manually
DX Fabric provides actionable insights by linking context, metrics, and improvement workflows into one platform.
What customers should do now
- Identify whether Compass is used as a critical system today
- Review which teams rely on Compass catalogs and scorecards
- Expect communication from Atlassian with migration guidance
- Avoid new long‑term dependencies on Compass
- Assess DX Fabric now to benefit from new capabilities
Ready to assess your Atlassian road map?
Contact our Atlassian licensing experts to plan your transition with ease while saving costs.
Sources
Announcement of Compass to DX: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/the-next-chapter-for-compass.
How to move from Compass to DX: https://support.atlassian.com/compass/docs/migrate-from-compass-to-dx/.
DX Fabric product page: https://getdx.com/ai-enablement/.