Terminology

2205 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 areas2205 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 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 concept794 practice734 pattern368 metric125 case-study77 tool62 protocol45

5 terms shown.

Term	Kind	Topic	What it is
Afferent and Efferent Coupling	metric	Coupling	The counts of components depending on a module and of components it depends upon, used together to identify which parts of a system are expensive to change.
Boundary Traffic Cost Chattiness Tax, Decomposition Data Cost, Per-Hop Cost	concept	Coupling	The recurring cost of the data and coordination that cross a component boundary - paid on every request forever, and the number that decides whether a decomposition is affordable rather than merely tidy.
Common Coupling Shared Mutable State Coupling, Shared Database Coupling	concept	Coupling	Coupling through shared mutable state, where every participant constrains every other participant's ability to change - the one form of coupling with no natural upper bound.
Coupling in Practice	concept	Coupling	The kinds of coupling that actually hurt, ranked by how much they constrain independent change.
Temporal Coupling	concept	Coupling	A dependency in which one component requires another to be available at the same moment, so the availability of both is required for either to work.