Terminology

2185 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 areas2185 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture89 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience75 Observability70 Performance & Capacity Engineering72 Security Architecture81 Cost Architecture & FinOps66 Business Architecture67 Architecture Communication67 Enterprise Architecture66 Legacy Modernization66 AI-Era Architecture69 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 Architecture64 Streaming & Real-Time Data69 Data Governance & Semantics69 Frontend & Experience Architecture66 Edge, Mobile & IoT68 Regulatory & Data Protection Architecture65 Assurance, Audit & Model Risk64

Kind Any concept785 practice729 pattern362 metric125 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

15 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Adapter Conformance Suite Port Conformance Tests, Shared Adapter Test Suite	pattern	Hexagonal Architecture	One test suite written against a port and run against every implementation including the in-memory fake, so the fake cannot promise behaviour the real adapter does not deliver.
Aggregate	pattern	Domain-Driven Design	A cluster of objects treated as a single unit for data changes, with one root through which all modification passes, defining the consistency boundary.
Bidirectional Contract	pattern	Contract Tests	A contract verified from both sides — the consumer's expectations and the provider's actual behaviour — without either running the other's tests directly.
Blue-Green Database Schema	pattern	Release Strategies	The constraint that makes fast rollback actually work — both application versions must be able to run against one schema at the same time.
Branch by Abstraction	pattern	Refactoring	Making a large change incrementally on the trunk by introducing an abstraction over the old implementation, building the new one behind it, then removing the abstraction.
Clean Architecture Onion Architecture	pattern	Clean Architecture	Concentric layers with dependencies pointing inward, so business rules know nothing about frameworks, databases or delivery mechanisms.
Feature Flags Feature Toggles	pattern	Feature Flags	Decoupling deployment from release, so code ships continuously and exposure is a runtime decision — with a lifecycle that must be enforced.
Hexagonal Architecture in Practice Ports and Adapters	pattern	Hexagonal Architecture	The application defines ports; adapters implement them — so the same core is driven by HTTP, a queue, or a test with no changes.
Microservices	pattern	Software Architecture	An architectural style where an application is a set of independently deployable services, each owning its data and aligned to a business capability.
Modular Monolith Boundaries	pattern	Modular Monolith	A single deployable unit with strictly enforced internal module boundaries, giving domain separation without distribution.
Port and Adapter	pattern	Hexagonal Architecture	An interface defined by the application expressing what it needs, paired with an implementation that connects it to a specific technology.
Release Strategies	pattern	Release Strategies	How new code reaches users — rolling, blue-green, canary, or flag-controlled — chosen by rollback speed and blast radius.
Release Toggle Temporary Feature Flag, Rollout Flag, Deploy-Release Decoupler	pattern	Feature Flags	A short-lived flag that decouples deploying code from releasing a feature, intended to be removed within weeks - and the category responsible for almost all accumulated feature-flag debt when it is not.
Shared Kernel Shared Model, Common Domain Library	pattern	Bounded Contexts	A deliberately shared subset of the domain model between two contexts, which removes translation cost by accepting a shared release cadence - the one context relationship that couples teams on purpose.
Sync Engine Local-First Sync, Client Database Replication, Delta Sync	pattern	Modular Monolith	A client-side database kept continuously in sync with the server through deltas, so every read and write is local and instantaneous - moving the network off the interaction critical path entirely.