175. Agile Monday Nürnberg - OpenRewrite in Action: From Strategy to Execution

Dear Agile Monday Followers,

We're very excited to host Merlin Bögershausen together with Softwerkskammer Nürnberg at CodeCentric in September.

Modern software systems age quickly — and changing them at scale is often costly, slow, and risky. But what if migrations, upgrades, and even full-on architectural shifts could be automated, reliable, and even… elegant?

The session will be a choose-your-own-adventure for developers, architects, and platform teams alike. It introduces OpenRewrite, the powerful refactoring automation platform enabling organizations to adapt faster, safer, and at scale. Whether you're looking to break free from vendor lock-in, manage cross-tier migrations in heterogeneous environments, or orchestrate complex upgrade paths across multiple teams and releases — OpenRewrite provides the foundation. After a brief introduction to OpenRewrite and the core concepts that make it tick — recipes, ASTs, refactoring rules, and semantic understanding — the floor is open. Together, we’ll explore three key dimensions:

• First, we may look at tech stack liquidity — the idea that your tech stack should be a strategic asset, not a constraint. Learn how organizations use OpenRewrite to maintain digital sovereignty, reduce lock-in, and avoid painful migrations when vendors or frameworks evolve.
• Next, we can shift into the nuts and bolts of polyglot migrations. This is where developers feel the magic: multi-format upgrades, across Java, YAML, XML, SQL, and more — with consistent, automatable rules that scale across thousands of repositories and teams.
• Finally, for those thinking about delivery and safety, we’ll cover release timing and orchestration. Learn how teams use “release train metro plans” to identify the right upgrade order, avoid breaking dependencies, and roll out coordinated changes across complex systems.

All three of these are on the menu — but you’ll steer the session. Depending on interest, we’ll dive deeper into the strategic, the technical, or the operational. The goal: give you a clear starting point, tangible examples, and the clarity to take the next step in your organization’s modernization journey.

Merlin is a software engineer, architect and Oracle ACE with over 10 years of experience in various domains and languages. As a migration engineer, he helps teams and individuals utilize new features and assists with migration. In addition to development, speaking at conferences and being a dad, he teaches people how to land gliders (yes, I'm a flight instructor!) and plays volleyball.

We are looking forward to Merlin's session. So join us for insights, ideas and community.

Sunny regards,
Martin & Fabian & Marco

Image: Photo by russelldavies - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - https://www.flickr.com/photos/75429951@N00