Web development

We have extensive experience working closely with client-side teams to enable a smooth handover and we endeavour to equip you with the tools and knowledge to achieve your desired level of self-sufficiency in the ongoing maintenance and growth of your digital assets. 

Developers at Luminary are certified in their platform/s of choice and continue to renew these certifications to keep up with the current best practices on those platforms. Our current team also includes five platform MVPs, with CTO Andy Thompson (Kentico and Kontent.ai MVP), Technical Director Emmanuel Tissera (Umbraco), Solutions Architect Mario Lopez (Umbraco), and Senior Developer Ynze Nunnink (Optimizely). 

In addition, Luminary has eight developers who are certified on the Azure platform, while a further 11 developers have certifications on CMS platforms which primarily run on Azure infrastructure. Our Quality Assurance team also has two members who are certified by the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB). These testers work hand-in-hand with our developers to make sure that work is delivered to the highest standards.

How we do web development

Front end development 

Luminary has a large team of dedicated Front End Developers (FED), ranging from intern, through Senior, Lead, and Front End Architect level. Our FED team is regularly trained in cross-discipline topics ranging from UX and UI design concepts, through to the same robust software development practices followed by our back-end team, as well as OWASP and security training. The team also has a strong focus on WCAG accessibility to level AA, as well as performance considerations such as Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics.

Thanks to close collaboration with our UI Design team, every project our FED team builds is based on a design system, and built in a modular, componentised way. Where there is no design system supplied by a client with their brand guidelines, Luminary will use our own proprietary design system, which represents decades of best practice, UX, accessibility and cross-browser testing in a set of base components ready to be extended and customised. 

React.js is Luminary’s primary choice of front-end library. Every one of our developers is trained extensively in advanced React development, and it’s a core skill for our team. Additionally, Luminary boasts strong skills in Next.js and Astro, further enhancing our front-end development capabilities. 

Back end and integration development 

Luminary’s team of 20+ back-end developers specialise in .NET development, DXP implementation, and custom integrations. Our developers and Solution Architects have integrated a range of leading .NET DXPs with all manner of third-party systems, both integrating from within the DXP via custom code with external APIs, and exposing robust, secure, well-documented RESTful APIs for other applications to integrate with.

We have very strong experience implementing secure, high-performance .NET WebAPI interfaces. These typically present a REST interface with full Swagger documentation. Our developers work with tools such as Postman, and also with our dedicated QA team, who are ISTQB certified testers and trained .NET developers.

Cloud native and API first

Our API-first development methodology is a cornerstone of our strategy. By prioritising APIs, we ensure that the functionality of the application is accessible and reusable across different platforms. This approach makes it easier to introduce and modify functionalities, allowing for seamless integration with other systems

Automated testing and continuous integration

Continuous delivery – All deployments are automated via CI/CD pipelines, with no reliance on manual processes. 

Real-time monitoring – Real-time monitoring employed to alert our team to any issues upon deployment. 

Phased deployments – Deployment artefacts are deployed one by one to each individual environment in a chain, to ensure quality and minimal disruption.

Automatic validation – Automated tests ensure that each release is functioning as expected in the target environment before it can be released further along the chain.

Security-first mindset

Best practices – From a website standpoint, we make sure that our work addresses all OWASP Top 10:2021 (latest), OWASP API Security Top 10:2023 and adheres to industry best practices.

Static code analysis – Luminary uses ReSharper to provide continuous code quality analysis and Snyk to analyse vulnerabilities in open source packages and provide remediations.

PII data – We minimise the collection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). If PII is collected, we make sure we follow industry best practices when handling it.

Data encryption – Application data is encrypted at rest and transmitted securely. Offline data is also a security consideration.

Documentation

Being an agile organisation, developers at Luminary value working software over documentation, but we still ensure documentation is covered off for our clients.

Agile documentation practices followed by Luminary developers:

• User story acceptance criteria
• Comments in JIRA with links to code commits
• Readme files
• Project wiki to capture learnings and best practices
• ‘Just-in-time’ documentation
• API Code generators
• Self-documenting code with clear and meaningful naming conventions.

Training and handover

Continuous training & handover – Throughout the project, sprint-by-sprint, we ensure our clients are trained on all features, and provided with access to all documentation.  

Final handover – At the completion of the initial build phase, and prior to launch, we carry out end-to-end, facilitated handovers with our key clients to ensure a complete handover. 

Launch and post-deployment support

During the immediate launch period and post-deployment, Luminary provides hyper-care support services to rapidly address any user issues, errors, or concerns.