Autonomy

Kind: principle

Layer: Structural Core

Aliases: Service Autonomy

Record: architecture:autonomy

Severity: contextual

Scope: service, team, bounded context

Canonical: Ontology

A design rule that a service or team owns its data and decisions, so it alone writes its data and others reach or change it only through its published API or events.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Independence and before Interface Segregation Principle (ISP).

Requires

• Independence
• Own Data
• Explicit Contracts

Reinforces

• Decentralization
• Resilience

Enables

• Microservices
• Bounded Context Ownership
• Independent Deployment

Conflicts with

• Centralized Runtime Control
• Shared Database
• Cyclic Deployment Dependency

In tension with

• Governance
• Standardization
• Global Consistency

Tensions

• Autonomy / Governance
• Autonomy / Standardization
• Autonomy / Global Consistency

Violated by

• Shared Database
• Distributed Monolith

Refactored by

• Own Data per Service
• Split Bounded Context
• Domain Events

Severity

• contextual

Category

• Core Modular Design

Reinforced by

• Bounded Context
• Service Contract
• Choreography
• Service-Oriented Architecture

Linked from

• Separate, trade, or mitigate
• The principle architecture
• Architectural rules and principles
• Anti-patterns
• Domain Architecture
• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Control / Coordination / Centralization
• Core Modular Design
• Error Handling / Resilience
• Architecture Review / Evolution / Governance Artifacts
• Security / Privacy / Compliance / Governance
• Codebase / System Architecture Styles
• Core Modular Design
• Core Vocabulary
• Domain Architecture
• Event Messaging Async
• Severity levels
• The resolutions