Stateless Processing

Kind: principle

Layer: Execution Core

Record: architecture:stateless-processing

Severity: recommended

Scope: function, stream processor, service

Canonical: Ontology

A design rule that a processor derives each result only from its input and explicitly passed context.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Dataflow Architecture and before Windowing.

Requires

• Explicit Inputs
• No Hidden State

Reinforces

• Scalability
• Testability

Enables

• Parallel Processing

Conflicts with

• Stateful Hidden Accumulation

In tension with

• Stateful Business Rules

Tensions

• Stateless Processing / Stateful Business Rules

Violated by

• Stateful Hidden Accumulation

Refactored by

• Externalize Session State
• Pass Context Explicitly

Severity

• recommended

Category

• Streaming / Pipeline / Dataflow Processing

Linked from

• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Scalability / Performance / Optimization
• Core Vocabulary
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Scalability / Performance / Optimization
• Streaming / Pipeline / Dataflow Processing
• Severity levels
• The resolutions