Terminology

2240 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 areas2240 Architecture Fundamentals77 Distributed Systems107 Data Architecture110 Cloud Architecture94 Networking88 API & Integration Architecture82 Reliability & Resilience80 Observability75 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 Architecture71 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 concept806 practice738 pattern379 metric133 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

66 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Stacked Changes Stacked Diffs, Patch Series, Dependent Change Chain	practice	Branching Models	Splitting one body of work into a chain of small dependent changes that each review and merge on their own, so branch lifetime is set by the size of a link rather than the size of the feature.
Standard Change	practice	Change Management vs CD	A pre-authorised, low-risk, repeatable change type that may be executed without going through a change advisory board.
Trunk-Based Development TBD	practice	Branching Models	All developers integrate small changes into a single shared branch at least daily, keeping it always releasable.
Unmanaged Change Surface Out-of-Band Change Path, Ungated Change	concept	Deployment Gates	Every mechanism that can alter production without passing through the deployment pipeline - so the organisation's rollout controls apply to a fraction of its changes and the incidents come from the rest.
Untrusted Build Step Third-Party CI Step, Curl-Pipe-Shell Step	concept	Pipeline Secrets	Any pipeline step whose code you do not control and did not review - a downloaded script, a third-party action, a plugin - which runs with the whole job's credentials and network access.
Workload Identity Federation	protocol	Pipeline Secrets	A pipeline proving what it is with a short-lived signed token from its own platform, so no long-lived cloud credential is ever stored.