Plaid developed a custom bootloader to manage common configuration parameters and dependencies across its diverse set of internal services. The decision was made due to the lack of an out-of-the-box solution that met all their needs, and they wanted to avoid integrating with numerous new tools. The bootloader has since been extended to handle several other use cases such as application configuration, logging, and supervision. It has helped improve the reliability and feature set of Plaid's logging infrastructure, enabled better control over service lifecycles, and standardized application configuration across different environments.