Fitness Functions

Kind: mechanism

Layer: Evolution Principles

Record: architecture:fitness-functions

Severity: recommended

Scope: codebase, pipeline, architecture

Canonical: Ontology

A mechanism that turns an architecture rule into an executable check the pipeline runs on every change.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Gap Analysis and before Quality Attributes.

Requires

• Measurable Architecture Rule

Reinforces

• Evolutionary Architecture

Enables

• Automated Architecture Compliance

Conflicts with

• Manual Architecture Review Only

In tension with

• Rule Maintenance

Tensions

• Fitness Functions / Rule Maintenance

Contracts

• Enforcement Core

Violated by

• Manual-Only Governance

Severity

• recommended

Category

• Architecture Review / Evolution / Governance Artifacts

Refactors

• Big Ball of Mud
• Big-Upfront Frozen Architecture
• Feature-Only Design
• Quality Attributes
• Policy Enforcement
• Policy as Code

Reinforced by

• Stated Invariant
• State-Arity Limit

Linked from

• Three encodings
• The gate holds the line
• Principles are typed
• The structural domain
• From intent to predicate
• Anti-patterns
• Core Modular Design
• Architecture Review / Evolution / Governance Artifacts
• Security / Privacy / Compliance / Governance
• Coordination Surfaces
• Architecture Review Evolution Governance
• Architectural Clusters
• Severity levels
• The resolutions

in this codebase

• stagesFor
• runStages