The Engagement
Retained as the lead full-stack architect in partnership with Launch Control to engineer and deploy a next-generation internal portal for the University of Michigan School of Nursing. Tasked with constructing a secure, high-performance intranet on Drupal 11, the project required establishing an ironclad internal authentication framework and developing a highly functional, custom responsive theme tailored to internal staff workflows. The engagement concluded with a standardized local development environment blueprint to ensure a flawless operational handoff to the university's internal DevOps team.
Key Contributions
- Next-Gen Drupal 11 Architecture
Served as the primary technical architect driving the implementation patterns of a modern Drupal 11 core environment, ensuring compliance with the latest PHP, Symfony, and backend optimization standards.
- Institutional Single Sign-On (SSO)
Engineered a secure, restricted-access gateway by integrating the OpenID Connect (OIDC) protocol directly with the University of Michigan’s centralized Wolverine Access identity provider. Implemented automated role-mapping logic to instantly grant or revoke administrative and staff permissions based on institutional credentials.
- Custom Theme Development
Architected and coded a bespoke, accessible, and clean frontend theme from the ground up. Optimized the user experience specifically for data-dense internal dashboards, personnel directories, and administrative asset management pipelines.
- Pantheon Enterprise WebOps
Configured, optimized, and deployed the platform onto the Pantheon enterprise cloud hosting network. Established advanced caching strategies, configuration management splits, and upstream deployment pipelines to guarantee maximum internal application uptime.
- Standardized DevOps Handoff
Formulated a repeatable local development framework utilizing Lando. Packaged the complete site configuration, database sanitation scripts, and environment recipes into a turnkey local suite, facilitating a friction-free transition and ongoing codebase ownership for the internal U-M development team.
Timeline: 2025 – 2026
Core Stack: Drupal 11, PHP, Symfony, OpenID Connect (OIDC), Pantheon Enterprise, Lando, Custom Theme Development
Note: Full-stack platform engineering, OIDC authentication mechanics, and local DevOps handoff workflows executed by nah design in direct partnership with Launch Control.