Architecture

The shape follows the organisation

Architecture is the decision about where each responsibility lives. On the platforms we design, Drupal holds content, editorial workflow, and public delivery unless there is a reason to put them somewhere else. Services beside it hold work that has its own life cycle: an integration, a calculation, a queue, an interface that is an application.

We use ordinary patterns. REST when two systems need a contract. A modular Drupal codebase when the split is inside one product. A small set of services when the teams, the scaling, or the owning systems are actually different. Microservices are a tool for that last case, not the default drawing.

Maintainable means someone else can change it

A flexible diagram that no one can deploy is a liability. We draw the boundaries where a team can test and release, and we stop there. Each boundary has an owner, an interface, and a way to run it locally. Shared data is explicit. Authentication crosses the boundary on purpose, not by sharing a database password.

The writing is part of the architecture. A short description of the systems, the reason each one exists, and the path a request takes will outlast the workshop. It is what a new engineer and a procurement reviewer can both read.

• Drupal as the content and delivery core, unless the brief says otherwise.
• REST and clear service boundaries where systems must change separately.
• A modular monolith when splitting the network would only multiply the failure points.
• A written map of systems, owners, and how a change moves between them.

How an architecture engagement starts

Send the systems you have and the constraint that made the current shape painful: a release that takes too long, an integration nobody dares to touch, a Drupal site that has become the place every rule was hardcoded. We will tell you what to split, what to leave, and what to delete.

This work sits inside Cloud & AI Development. Request information — tell us the organisation, the platform, and the constraint.