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Terminology

2225 terms, tools, patterns and metrics an architect is expected to use precisely. Each one gets a short explanation of what it is, and — where it matters — what it is commonly confused with. Search filters as you type; the column headers sort.

All areas2225 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture94 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture86 Cost Architecture & FinOps71 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization71 AI-Era Architecture74 Software Architecture & Engineering71 Architecture Patterns71 Architecture Decision-Making63 The Architect's Meta-Skills61 Delivery & Release Engineering66 Platform Engineering & Developer Experience70 Testing & Quality Architecture66 Data Platform Architecture69 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics74 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk69
Kind Any concept801 practice736 pattern377 metric127 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

17 terms shown.

Term Kind Topic What it is
Backend for Frontend BFF pattern BFF for Experience A dedicated backend per client experience, owned by the client team, that shapes and aggregates downstream services for that client's exact needs.
Bootstrap Kill Switch Boot-Path Flag, Safe Mode Configuration pattern Client Feature Flags A configuration value read from local storage before any application code initialises, paired with a launch-failure counter, so a client that crashes during start-up can still be disabled and recovered.
Client-Side Data Layer Query Cache, Server State Management pattern Client Caching & Data Layer A client library that owns fetching, caching, invalidation and background refresh of server data, distinct from local UI state.
Edge Personalisation pattern Edge Rendering Varying a cached response at the edge on a small number of attributes, so the page stays cacheable while still differing per visitor segment.
Edge Rendering Edge-Side Rendering, POP Rendering pattern Edge Rendering Producing a page's HTML in a lightweight runtime at a CDN point of presence rather than in a regional data centre - which removes network distance from the response and adds distance to the data.
Islands Architecture Partial Hydration, Selective Interactivity, Component Islands pattern Hydration Cost Rendering a page as static HTML with independently-hydrated interactive regions, so JavaScript is shipped and executed only for the parts that need it rather than for the whole page.
Locale Fallback Chain Language Negotiation Chain, Locale Resolution Order pattern Internationalisation The declared order in which a system degrades from a requested locale to one it can actually serve - and the decision about which values are allowed to degrade at all.
Micro-Frontend pattern Micro-Frontends Splitting a web interface into independently developed and deployed pieces owned by different teams, composed at build time, server time or runtime.
Module Federation Micro Frontends pattern Module Federation Composing a frontend from independently deployed pieces — solving an organisational problem at a real technical cost.
Normalised Client Cache Entity Cache, Client-Side Store, Identity-Keyed Cache pattern Client Caching & Data Layer Caching server responses as entities keyed by identity rather than as whole responses keyed by request, so that updating an entity once updates every view that displays it.
Optimistic Update Reconciliation Optimistic UI Rollback, Client Reconciliation pattern Client State Architecture The policy deciding what happens when a change already shown to the user differs from what the server ultimately accepts - the part of optimistic UI where the real defects live.
Partial Hydration Islands Architecture, Selective Hydration pattern Hydration Cost Attaching client-side interactivity only to the components that need it, rather than reconstructing the whole page's component tree in the browser.
Remote Module Loading pattern Module Federation Importing code from another application's build at runtime, with the versioning, availability and failure questions that a normal import does not have.
Runtime Composition pattern Micro-Frontends Assembling one page from independently deployed fragments at request or render time, which is what makes micro-frontends more than separate builds.
Screen Shaped Endpoint pattern BFF for Experience An endpoint that returns exactly what one screen needs in one request, shaped by the interface rather than by the domain model.
Shell Personalisation Cache the Shared, Personalise the Edge, Hole Punching pattern Rendering Strategies Generating and caching the page that is identical for everyone, then applying per-user variation at the edge or on the client - preserving the cache hit rate that personalising the whole page destroys.
Stale While Revalidate pattern Client Caching & Data Layer Serving cached data immediately while fetching a fresh copy in the background, which makes an interface feel instant at the cost of a brief inconsistency.