Visual Diagrams
Use this page when you want to explain a concept quickly with boxes, arrows, and tradeoffs. This is the current architecture-diagram inventory for the playbook.
The diagrams are intentionally simple so they can be redrawn on a whiteboard during interviews or customer conversations. For the roadmap that decides which Mermaid diagrams become polished images, use Imagery Plan. For prompt and review rules, use Visual Prompt Standard.
Replacement Strategy
Mermaid is the working layer. Keep it for decision trees, process flows, and quick whiteboard shapes. Promote a diagram to a polished visual only when the image will make a high-value page easier to teach or reuse.
Priority order:
- Showcase visuals — flagship architecture concepts and customer-facing boundary diagrams.
- Reusable environment maps — network, trust, tenant, and data-residency boundaries.
- Process visuals — only when the process is repeatedly used in interviews or customer calls.
When replacing Mermaid, the visual should preserve the same architecture meaning: same components, same arrows, same decision points, and no invented systems.
Architecture Reviews
- Design Review Framework - How to move from intent to findings to recommendations.
- Reference Architecture Structure - The layers every reference architecture should cover.
- Well-Architected Pillars - The six-pillar workload view.
- Well-Architected Review Flow - The review process from scope to follow-up.
- Security Architecture Layers - Identity, network, data, application, and detection layers.
Migration
- Migration Assessment Flow - Business context through migration grouping.
- Migration Wave Planning - Foundation, core services, complex workloads, and cleanup.
- Data Migration Decision Tree - Offline, online, or phased data movement.
- Cutover Sequence - Go/no-go, traffic shift, validation, and rollback.
Architecture Patterns
- Microservices Decision Tree - When microservices are justified and when a modular monolith is better.
- Event-Driven Decision Tree - Pub/sub, queue, stream, or synchronous request-response.
- API Gateway Pattern - Consumers, gateway responsibilities, and backend services.
- Data Mesh Operating Model - Domain data products with platform and governance support.
Environments
- Air-Gapped Delivery Flow - Bundle, approve, transfer, deploy, and validate offline.
- Private Cluster Architecture - Access path, control plane, workloads, registry, storage, and DNS.
- Firewall-Restricted Network Path - Runtime sources, proxy, firewall, DNS, and external dependencies.
- Multi-Tenant Cluster Boundaries - Namespace boundaries, quotas, RBAC, policies, and shared services.
- Hybrid Environment Boundary - Cloud, on-prem, DNS, connectivity, identity, and failure domains.
How to Practice
- Open one diagram and explain what each box owns.
- Name the highest-risk boundary or handoff.
- Explain what evidence would prove the design works.
- State one tradeoff and one simpler alternative.