Steven Stuart
Software Architect
Software architect with 15 years of experience building complex distributed systems.
Articles
Topology Is Not a Trust Model: Position vs Identity
Whether a service request is legitimate is treated as an authentication question, but the answer is also an architectural one: whether legitimacy comes from network position or from verified ownership. That distinction shapes service structure, security posture, and team dynamics in ways that compound as systems grow.
Architecture Is a Belief About Where Authority Belongs
SOLID, normalization, least privilege, and bounded contexts share a structural belief: that where authority lives determines what the system can absorb. This post develops that into two measurable properties, contour and bond, and traces through an order workflow how authority correctly placed is quietly eroded by optimization.
Study Guides
AAA Cycle: Align-Agree-Apply
A guiding discipline for architects that works inside any SDLC methodology: align with the need through human connection, agree on how to meet it, apply what was agreed, and go back to an earlier phase when reality breaks the agreement.
AAA Cycle: Phase 1 - Align with the Need
The first AAA phase: stakeholder discovery, requirements and architectural characteristics, constraints and risks, a Go, Pivot, or No-Go call built from an effort estimate and a risk tier, the project charter, and the test that alignment is real before moving to Agree.
AAA Cycle: Phase 2 - Agree to the Plan
The second AAA phase: architecture design and ADRs, validating the design against its top quality attributes, documentation matched to risk, proofs of concept, quality strategy and SLOs, planning to an appetite, and reaching real agreement among stakeholders and with the team.
Case Studies
When Discipline Makes AI a Force Multiplier
Rebuilding an undocumented legacy application in four months by applying Anthropic's 4D Framework and Shaped Kanban to every AI interaction
When Third-Party Integration Meets Domain Boundaries
Embedding Discord concerns within domains instead of extracting them to a dedicated service
When a Trusted Dependency Becomes a Silent Killer
A silent deadlock in a trusted SDK bypassed every test we had, and plan continuation bias cost me two days I didn't need to lose