Architecture Lens

Modern applications need change paths, not just component diagrams

A useful application architecture explains how teams will change, test, deploy, secure, observe, and support the system. The component diagram matters, but the operating paths around the components often determine whether the application remains maintainable.

  • Define service boundaries around business ownership, data ownership, and release cadence.
  • Pair APIs and events with contracts, versioning, error handling, and observability expectations.
  • Design deployment, rollback, and support paths into the first production release.
Modern app operating paths
Experience

User workflow, API, and accessibility expectations.

Services

Boundaries, contracts, events, and dependencies.

Delivery

CI/CD, tests, release gates, and infrastructure as code.

Operate

Telemetry, runbooks, SLOs, and incident learning.

Original InSkyto diagram informed by Azure Well-Architected guidance.

References

Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework

Delivery Pattern

Use thin vertical releases

Thin vertical releases expose integration, deployment, data, security, and usability issues earlier than broad horizontal build phases. They also give stakeholders working evidence instead of abstract progress reports.

Checklist

Architecture decisions to record

Record why boundaries were chosen, what data each service owns, how events are retried, where secrets live, how observability works, and which team owns each production surface.