architecture-advisor

To choose a .NET architecture, assess domain complexity, team size, system lifetime, compliance, and integration needs to map signals to Vertical Slice, Clean, DDD, or Modular Monolith patterns. This structured questionnaire approach prevents over-engineering and under-engineering by surfacing trade-offs and evolution paths.

You need DDD and Clean Architecture in .NET when your project has strong invariants, complex domain logic, strict regulatory constraints, and requires clear bounded contexts. This approach is warranted for long-lived systems like payment processing where compliance is critical.

For a simple .NET MVP, Vertical Slice Architecture is often sufficient and preferred over Clean Architecture to avoid over-engineering. Using Clean Architecture for basic CRUD operations is an anti-pattern that adds unnecessary complexity without proportional benefits.

You should not use microservices for a new .NET project if your domain complexity is low or your team is small, as premature microservices create operational overhead. A Modular Monolith provides boundary enforcement and evolution paths without distributed system complexity.

The best way to restructure an existing .NET codebase is to run an architectural review questionnaire evaluating current codebase characteristics and integration patterns. Mapping these signals to a decision matrix provides targeted migration paths and anti-pattern guardrails for safe evolution.

Modular Monolith architecture works for large .NET teams by organizing domain complexity into clear modules within a single deployable unit. It provides necessary boundaries for complex domains while avoiding the operational overhead of distributed microservices.