architecture

To choose between microservices and a modular monolith architecture, you must analyze your system's scale, team size, and complexity constraints. Comparing these trade-offs helps validate whether distributed patterns are justified or if a simpler modular design fits better.

The best way to document architecture decisions is by writing Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) that capture context, alternatives, consequences, and revisit triggers. This provides clear, defensible rationale for why a specific design was chosen over simpler alternatives.

You need bounded-context design in microservices when managing complex enterprise domains that require strict separation of concerns. It helps define clear service boundaries by analyzing domain requirements and validating structure against your team's actual workflow and scale.

To evaluate if event-driven architecture or CQRS fits your requirements, compare these patterns against your system's specific scale, timeline, and domain constraints. Pattern selection requires explicit rationale to validate whether the added complexity is justified for your use case.

Before selecting a distributed system architecture, you should gather constraints around scale, team size, timeline, domain complexity, and simpler alternatives. Requirements discovery ensures your architecture choices are validated against real limitations rather than guesswork.

Choosing microservices often introduces unnecessary complexity when distributed patterns are applied without validating clear constraints, team size, or explicit rationale. Without trade-off analysis, simpler alternatives like modular monoliths might better serve the actual system requirements.