Interoperability

Kind: quality-attribute

Layer: Contracts Core

Record: architecture:interoperability

Severity: mandatory

Scope: API, data, protocol, system

Canonical: Ontology

The degree to which separate systems exchange data and use it correctly through shared formats and contracts.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Protocol Compatibility and before Uniform Interface.

Requires

• Contracts
• Standards
• Compatibility

Reinforces

• Portability
• Integration

Enables

• Cross-System Communication

Conflicts with

• Proprietary Coupling

In tension with

• Domain-Specific Optimization

Tensions

• Interoperability / Domain-Specific Optimization

Violated by

• Proprietary Coupling
• Implicit Assumptions

Refactored by

• Standardize the Interface
• Extract Adapter
• Schema Validation

Severity

• mandatory

Category

• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility

Reinforced by

• Explicit Contracts
• Contract-First Design
• API Contract
• Data Contract
• Protocol Compatibility
• Standards Compliance
• Integration Events
• Standardization
• Self-Describing API
• Canonical Data Model
• Semantic Consistency

Enabled by

• Robustness Principle
• Adapter Pattern

Linked from

• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Portability / Infrastructure / Deployment
• Event / Messaging / Asynchronous Architecture
• Error Handling / Resilience
• Architecture Review / Evolution / Governance Artifacts
• Metadata / Self-Description / Declarative Systems
• Structural Patterns
• Schema / Canonical Data / Semantics
• Transactions / State / Concurrency
• Codebase / System Architecture Styles
• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Core Vocabulary
• Severity levels
• The resolutions