Architecture clinic

Stuck between two designs? Unsure whether your system will survive its next stage of growth? The architecture clinic takes real questions from readers and works through them in the open.

How it works

1. Send your question with the context below.
2. Selected questions get a public write-up on this site: the situation, the options, the trade-offs and a recommendation. Details that could identify you or your employer are removed or changed, and you see the draft before it’s published.
3. Everyone learns from it. Past clinic answers will be collected here as they are published.

What to include

• The situation: what the system does, who uses it, and roughly how big it is (users, requests, data, team size).
• The decision you face: the options you’re considering and what’s pushing you toward each.
• Constraints: deadlines, budget, regulations, required technology, skills on the team.
• A diagram, if you have one. A photo of a whiteboard is fine.

Please don’t send anything confidential: no credentials, customer data, internal hostnames or anything your employer wouldn’t want shared. Describe systems in general terms.

Send a question

For now, send your question as a message on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab). A submission form is coming soon.

Private reviews

One-to-one architecture reviews for teams, covering a design, a migration plan or a production incident, are planned. If you’d like to be told when they’re available, mention it in your message.

Get clinic write-ups by email

The newsletter is launching soon. Until then, new case studies, guides and code are announced on LinkedIn, Medium and GitHub.