Inappropriate Intimacy

Kind: anti-pattern

Layer: Enforcement Core

Record: architecture:inappropriate-intimacy

Severity: discouraged

Scope: modularity, contract_compatibility

Formed by: Allow modules or classes to rely on each other’s internals, private structure, lifecycle, or undocumented state.

Canonical: Ontology

A defect in which modules depend on each other's internal structure or private state.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Feature Envy and before Message Chain.

Refactored by

• Restrict Exports
• Define Contract
• Facade Pattern

Severity

• discouraged

Category

• Anti-patterns

Force

• Contract compatibility
• Modularity

Violates

• Explicit Boundaries

Negated by

• Low Coupling

Linked from

• The direction axis
• Anti-patterns
• Domain Architecture
• Core Modular Design
• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Core Modular Design
• Severity levels
• The forces