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Free architecture checklists & templates

Practical checklists for reviews and delivery — aligned with architecture notes from Sanjeev Kumar, Application Architect. General practice guidance; not client metrics or engagement claims.

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Enterprise RAG checklist

Use before promoting a retrieval-augmented assistant beyond a pilot. Deeper notes: RAG architecture.

  • Corpus ownership is clear (who updates HLD/LLD, ADRs, contracts, runbooks).
  • Chunking and metadata preserve document type, version and sensitivity labels.
  • Retrieval returns citations the user can open; answers refuse when evidence is thin.
  • Evaluation set exists (faithfulness, relevance, refusal quality) — not demo prompts only.
  • PII / regulated content is filtered or redacted before embedding and before display.
  • Latency, cost per query and index freshness have owners and alerts.
  • Human review path for high-impact answers (design, security, compliance).

Spring Boot microservices checklist

Boundaries and operability before more services. Related: microservices, Java.

  • Service boundary maps to a business capability, not a shared database table.
  • Published API contract (OpenAPI / async schema) with versioning and compatibility rules.
  • Idempotency on side-effecting commands; no dual-write without outbox / inbox.
  • Timeouts, retries with jitter, circuit breakers and bulkheads on outbound calls.
  • Health, readiness, structured logs, metrics and tracing with correlation IDs.
  • Config and secrets externalised; no credentials in images or repos.
  • Rollback path rehearsed; schema migrations are expand/contract safe.

Kubernetes production checklist

Container platform hygiene for enterprise Java workloads. Related: cloud architecture.

  • Liveness and readiness probes distinguish process death from dependency lag.
  • CPU/memory requests and limits set from observed load, not copy-paste defaults.
  • PodDisruptionBudgets and rollout strategy protect capacity during upgrades.
  • NetworkPolicy / equivalent egress and ingress controls where the platform requires them.
  • Secrets via platform secret store; rotated; not env-dumped into logs.
  • Horizontal scaling keys off meaningful metrics (queue lag, RPS), not CPU alone.
  • Runbooks for CrashLoopBackOff, OOMKilled and failed rollouts exist before go-live.

System design checklist

Constraints-first prompts for design reviews. Hub: architecture overview.

  • Latency, throughput, consistency and availability targets are written down with units.
  • Failure modes and blast radius are named; partial failure behaviour is explicit.
  • Data ownership, retention and audit requirements drive storage and messaging choices.
  • Team topology matches the proposed boundaries (or the design is simplified).
  • Migration / strangler path exists if legacy is involved; cut-over is reversible.
  • Observability and security controls are in the design, not a later ticket.
  • Rejected alternatives and tradeoffs are captured in an ADR (see template below).

Enterprise AI security checklist

Minimum controls for LLM-backed features in regulated contexts. Related: AI architecture.

  • Data classification for prompts, retrieved chunks and model outputs is defined.
  • Egress to model providers is allow-listed; residency and retention terms are known.
  • Prompt-injection and tool-abuse paths are threat-modelled for agents and tools.
  • AuthN/authZ on the gateway matches the underlying systems the agent can touch.
  • Logging redacts secrets and PII; prompts/responses have retention limits.
  • Guardrails for toxic, disallowed or ungrounded content have test coverage.
  • Human approval gates for actions that change production systems or customer data.

Architecture Decision Record template

Copy into your wiki or repo as ADR-NNNN-short-title.md.

  • Title — short decision name
  • Status — Proposed / Accepted / Superseded / Deprecated
  • Context — forces at play (constraints, stakeholders, deadlines)
  • Decision — what we chose, in one or two sentences
  • Alternatives considered — options rejected and why
  • Consequences — follow-on work, risks, operability impact
  • Links — HLD/LLD, tickets, related ADRs

The Architecture Brief

Working title for a planned short newsletter on architecture tradeoffs, event-driven design and enterprise AI. No signup form is available on this site yet. Until a provider is wired, follow LinkedIn and Writing for new notes.

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