Reference Library
Architecture Patterns
How systems actually get structured — not a specific project's write-up, general engineering knowledge explained plainly, with the real tradeoffs each pattern involves, not just when it sounds impressive.
RAG Architecture
A pipeline that grounds an LLM's answers in your own documents via retrieval, instead of relying only on what the model memorized during training.
Agentic Orchestration
A loop where an AI agent reads input, decides an action, calls a tool, observes the result, and decides again — instead of a single-shot prompt and response.
Event-Driven Architecture
Systems communicate by publishing and reacting to events — 'this happened' — instead of directly calling each other and waiting for a response.
Microservices vs. Monolith
Whether an application is built as one deployable unit or split into independently deployable services.
API Gateway / Backend-for-Frontend
A single entry point that sits in front of your backend services, handling routing, auth, and request shaping for client applications.
Human-in-the-Loop Architecture
A system design where a person reviews or approves an AI system's output before it takes effect, at a defined point in the flow.
Serverless Architecture
Code runs in response to events without your team provisioning or managing the underlying servers.
Data Pipeline Architecture (ETL/ELT)
The structured flow that moves data from source systems into a place it can be reliably reported on.
Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
A deliberate plan for what happens when infrastructure fails outright — not the same question as day-to-day monitoring, and usually the one businesses discover they never answered until it's too late.
Observability & Monitoring
The difference between knowing a system is broken because a customer told you, and knowing before they notice.