Architecture Decisions
The recurring arguments — split or don't, events or calls, build or buy — and how to write the decision down.
8 topics
Monolith vs Microservices
The argument, honestly — what services actually buy you, what they cost, and why the modular monolith is usually the right first answer.
core25 minDrawing Service Boundaries
Splitting by business capability rather than technical layer, and using the data — who writes what — as the test for whether a boundary is real.
core20 minEvent-Driven vs Request-Response
When to publish an event instead of making a call — decoupling and resilience against traceability and eventual consistency.
core20 minBuild vs Buy
Deciding what to own — the real cost of building, the real cost of depending, and the question that settles most cases.
core20 minArchitecture Decision Records
Writing down why you chose what you chose, in a page, so the reasoning survives the people who made it.
core15 minMigrating a Live System
Replacing something that's running and can't stop — strangler fig, dual writes, backfill, verification, and cutover you can reverse.
core25 minDesigning Under Constraints
The real inputs to an architecture — team size, deadline, budget, existing systems, compliance — and why naming them is the senior signal.
deep20 minAPI Contracts
The agreement between a producer and its consumers about shape, meaning, and change — and the mechanisms that stop it drifting.
core25 minshared