Microservices Architecture Patterns
Expert guidance for designing, implementing, and operating microservices architectures.
When to Use This Skill
- Breaking down monolithic applications into services
- Designing distributed systems from scratch
- Implementing service communication patterns (sync/async)
- Managing data consistency across services
- Building resilient distributed systems
- Defining service boundaries and API contracts
Core Principles
- Single Responsibility - Each service has one reason to change
- Independent Deployability - No coordination required for deployments
- Decentralized Data - Each service owns its data exclusively
- Design for Failure - Embrace failures, build resilience
- Automate Everything - Deployment, scaling, and recovery
Quick Reference
Load detailed patterns on-demand:
| Task | Load Reference |
|---|---|
| Define service boundaries and decompose monoliths | skills/microservices-patterns/references/service-decomposition.md |
| Implement service communication (sync/async) | skills/microservices-patterns/references/communication-patterns.md |
| Manage data consistency and transactions | skills/microservices-patterns/references/data-management.md |
| Build resilient systems (circuit breakers, retries) | skills/microservices-patterns/references/resilience-patterns.md |
| Add observability (tracing, logging, metrics) | skills/microservices-patterns/references/observability.md |
| Plan deployments and migrations | skills/microservices-patterns/references/deployment-migration.md |
Workflow
1. Understand Requirements
- Map business capabilities and domains
- Assess scalability/resilience needs
- Identify team boundaries
2. Define Service Boundaries
Load references/service-decomposition.md for:
- Business capability decomposition
- DDD bounded contexts
- Service boundary validation
3. Design Communication
Load references/communication-patterns.md for:
- Synchronous: API Gateway, REST, gRPC
- Asynchronous: Message Queue, Pub/Sub, Event Sourcing
4. Manage Data
Load references/data-management.md for:
- Database per service pattern
- Saga distributed transactions
- CQRS read/write optimization
5. Build Resilience
Load references/resilience-patterns.md for:
- Circuit breakers
- Retry with exponential backoff
- Bulkhead isolation
- Rate limiting and timeouts
6. Add Observability
Load references/observability.md for:
- Distributed tracing
- Centralized logging
- Metrics and monitoring
7. Plan Deployment
Load references/deployment-migration.md for:
- Blue-Green, Canary, Rolling deployments
- Strangler Fig migration pattern
Common Mistakes
- Distributed Monolith - Tightly coupled, must deploy together
- Shared Database - Multiple services accessing same database
- Chatty APIs - Excessive synchronous service calls
- Missing Circuit Breakers - No cascading failure protection
- No Observability - Deploying without tracing/logging/metrics
- Ignoring Network Failures - Assuming reliable network
- No API Versioning - Breaking changes without versioning
Fixes: Load relevant reference files for detailed solutions.
Resources
- Books: "Building Microservices" (Newman), "Microservices Patterns" (Richardson)
- Sites: microservices.io, martinfowler.com/microservices
- Tools: Kubernetes, Istio, Kafka, Kong, Jaeger, Prometheus