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

5 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Architecture Compliance Check	practice	Architecture Compliance Checks	Automated verification that a running system still conforms to the architectural decisions and standards it was approved against.
Conformance Automation	practice	Architecture Compliance Checks	Encoding architectural standards as automated checks, so review effort is spent on novel design decisions rather than on verifying known rules.
Policy as Code Compliance as Code, Automated Control, Executable Policy	practice	Architecture Compliance Checks	Expressing controls as executable rules evaluated automatically against real system state, so that compliance is demonstrated continuously over the whole population rather than asserted in a document and sampl…
Runtime Compliance Drift Plan-Time Blind Spot, Post-Apply Divergence	concept	Architecture Compliance Checks	The growing gap between what infrastructure code declares and what the running estate actually looks like, which a pipeline-based policy check cannot see and therefore reports as compliant.
Warn-Mode Debt Advisory Gate Backlog, Non-Blocking Policy Debt	concept	Architecture Compliance Checks	The accumulated violations of a policy that has only ever warned, which makes switching it to blocking politically impossible and hides how many of its rules are simply wrong.