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Semester 7: Software Architecture & Domain Design

World-Class Evidence Integration

The required expansion strand, evidence contract, assessment integration, AI-use declaration, and selective reading route are defined in World-Class Strand.

Year 3 -- Data & Architecture | Phase 7 | Legacy sequence 70–75 | 460–655 focused hours (planning estimate)

Curriculum Readiness: Learner-ready

Semester 7 is learner-ready in the canonical readiness matrix. Its source-backed path includes concrete architecture, modularity, DDD, API-evolution, decision-record, and review work with transfer assessments and portfolio evidence.

Goal​

Turn prior systems knowledge into architecture work another engineer can inspect, challenge, and extend: boundaries, contracts, decision records, review packets, and explicit tradeoffs.

Prerequisites​

Enter this semester after finishing the systems, operating-systems, networking, databases, and distributed-systems path. Architecture without those pressures quickly degrades into pattern memorization.

You should already be able to:

  • reason about consistency, availability, latency, and recovery tradeoffs
  • model a service or application boundary and explain what owns data
  • write technical documents that another engineer can review
  • connect code-level design decisions to operational consequences

Semester Structure​

#ModuleStatusFocus
1Architecture Fundamentals & Quality AttributesLearner-readyDrivers, quality attributes, scenarios, tactics, tradeoffs
2Architecture Patterns & Modular MonolithsLearner-readyLayered, pipeline, modular monolith, service-based, event-driven, microservices
3Domain-Driven Design & Bounded ContextsLearner-readySubdomains, context maps, aggregates, domain events, service alignment
4API Design & Contract EvolutionLearner-readyREST, RPC, GraphQL, compatibility, versioning, deprecation
5Architecture Decision Records & ReviewsLearner-readyADRs, review methods, facilitation, fitness functions, drift

Supporting semester artifacts:

  • Project: architecture review packet for a realistic system
  • Checkpoint: artifact-based readiness gate
  • Cumulative Review: interleaved review across Semesters 0-7
  • Exam: written architecture assessment under exam conditions

Why This Semester Exists​

Earlier semesters teach how systems behave. This semester teaches how to shape them intentionally.

The semester is built to answer questions that show up in real engineering work:

  • what architectural characteristics matter most for this system
  • whether a modular monolith, services, or events are justified
  • where bounded contexts should start and stop
  • what an API contract promises and how it can evolve safely
  • which decisions need ADRs, reviews, and executable checks

If you can describe a pattern but cannot defend why it belongs in a specific system, this semester is still incomplete.

Expected Deliverables​

By the end of the semester you should have a reviewable packet of architecture artifacts, not just notes:

  • quality-attribute scenarios tied to measurable system pressure
  • one style-selection memo grounded in stated characteristics
  • one domain model and context map for a realistic business problem
  • one API contract fragment with compatibility and deprecation rules
  • at least three ADRs with consequences and alternatives
  • one lightweight architecture review packet with captured risks and follow-ups
  • at least one fitness function or architecture-check concept you could automate in CI

Use the modules in order. Each later module assumes the earlier one is already internalized.

  1. Module 1: learn to identify architectural drivers and write measurable scenarios.
  2. Module 2: select architecture styles from those drivers instead of from trend pressure.
  3. Module 3: model the domain, bounded contexts, and transactional boundaries.
  4. Module 4: design contracts that match those boundaries and survive evolution.
  5. Module 5: record the important decisions, run reviews, and guard against drift.
  6. Project: combine the semester into one architecture review packet.

Semester Case​

The recurring semester case is OrderFlow, a mid-size commerce order-fulfillment platform with checkout, payments, fulfillment, shipping, and support workflows.

It is large enough to force real architecture choices:

  • external dependencies can fail
  • multiple teams need boundaries
  • APIs must evolve without constant breakage
  • domain language differs across payment, shipping, support, and operations work

Use that case when you need a common system to test your reasoning against.

Completion Standard​

Treat Semester 7 as complete only when you can do all of the following without hiding behind architecture buzzwords:

  • name the top architectural characteristics of a system and defend them
  • choose an architecture style by tradeoff, not by fashion
  • draw a context map and explain every important edge
  • design an API that exposes a clean contract and a credible evolution policy
  • write an ADR that another engineer can challenge productively
  • run a review that ends with a decision, risks, and follow-up actions in writing

If the artifacts would not survive peer review, the semester is not done.

Capstone Throughline​

Every semester must leave behind evidence that can survive into the final capstone defense.

Model Artifact Calibration​

Use the ADR model artifact and the API evolution/deprecation policy model artifact to calibrate architecture and contract-governance deliverables.

Enrichment Pages​

Portfolio Artifact | Common Failure Modes | Bridge Review

Workload and progression​

Use the reconciled workload and mandatory gates. All five extensions and S1–S5 security evidence are required. Learner-ready means authored material is available; independent review, service experiments and timing pilots remain distinct evidence.

Assistance and verification evidence​

Complete the linked review exercise as required subchecks of AR1/AR2/AR5, using 3–4 hours of the existing 8–12-hour review experiments. Reuse the existing packet; no extra semester hours or gate IDs are added. All original real-system and independent-review requirements remain.