Strategic Bounded Context Portfolio Architect

    1

    Architects strategic DDD bounded contexts: ubiquitous language scoping, relationship maps, ACLs, and team alignment.

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    Strategic Bounded Context Portfolio Architect

    Example session with this skill installed

    Architect strategic Domain-Driven Design (DDD) bounded context boundaries and ubiquitous language models for our Retail Banking & Wealth Modernization.

    • Subject: FinTech Core Banking & Wealth Enterprise Portfolio (run-id: retail-wealth-bc-001) decomposing 180 services across 3 business divisions.
    • Deciders: Chief Enterprise Architect (David O'Reilly) and Head of Domain Governance (Elena Rostova).
    • Scope & Scale: Partitioning overloaded domain concepts (Account, Customer, Balance) across Retail Deposit Banking, Commercial Lending, and Wealth Management.
    • Tension: Data architects proposed a single canonical "Enterprise Data Model" (EDM) with 450 shared tables across all divisions; David O'Reilly and Elena Rostova strictly reject a unified EDM, citing incident INC-4916 where changing "Account" in retail broke loan calculations for 3 weeks. They mandate: 3 isolated bounded contexts, explicit ubiquitous language dictionaries, Anti-Corruption Layer (ACL) boundaries, Open Host Service contracts, and team topology alignments.

    Write the bounded context architecture overview under docs/.

    • Read your context and instructions
    • Compiled the strategic bounded context

    Wrote docs/architecture/bounded-context-architect/00-overview/bounded-context-architect-overview.md and docs/architecture/bounded-context-architect/verification/fitness-self-check.md. Complete strategic Domain-Driven Design bounded context architecture specification establishing ubiquitous language boundaries across 3 banking domains, Anti-Corruption Layers, and team topology alignments.


    skill: bounded-context-architect

    Bounded Context Architecture: Retail Banking & Wealth Portfolio [BCARCH-FIN-001]

    Summary

    This specification establishes the strategic Domain-Driven Design (DDD) bounded context architecture, ubiquitous language boundaries, and context relationship topology for the Retail Banking & Wealth Modernization under run ID retail-wealth-bc-001. It governs 180 backend microservices across Retail Deposit Banking, Commercial Lending, and Wealth Management divisions. It decisively eliminates the catastrophic semantic collisions and schema fragility demonstrated in incident INC-4916 (where attempting to enforce a single canonical "Enterprise Data Model" caused an alter-table migration in Retail to silently break interest accrual algorithms in Commercial Lending for 3 weeks). The architecture partitions the enterprise into

    three autonomous Bounded Contexts (RetailDepositContext, CommercialLendingContext, WealthManagementContext), eliminates polysemic concept ambiguity (Account and Balance), enforces

    Anti-Corruption Layers (ACL) across legacy boundaries, and aligns context ownership with autonomous stream-aligned engineering teams.

    Detailed Description

    Attempting to model an entire enterprise under a single unified domain model is an anti-pattern. In reality, different business departments use the same linguistic terms to represent entirely different concepts. To a retail branch teller, an "Account" represents a demand deposit checking ledger. To a commercial loan officer, an "Account" represents a multi-party credit facility agreement with collateral liens. When these concepts are forced into a monolithic shared database table, schema changes in one division trigger unexpected breaking bugs in others. Strategic DDD isolates domain concepts within explicit contextual linguistic boundaries.

    Enterprise Domain Boundary: Retail Banking & Wealth Management
                             │
            ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
            ▼                ▼                ▼
    [ RetailDepositContext ] [ CommercialLendingContext ] [ WealthManagementContext ]
      ├── Language:            ├── Language:                ├── Language:
      │   `CheckingAccount`    │   `CreditFacility`         │   `InvestmentPortfolio`
      ├── Model: Ledger DDA    ├── Model: Debt Instrument   ├── Model: Asset Allocation
      └── Boundary: DDA Core   └── Boundary: Loan Origin    └── Boundary: Portfolio Core
            │                        │                            │
            ▼ (Open Host Service)    ▼ (Downstream Consumer)      ▼ (Downstream Consumer)
      [ Ingress Gateway ] ────► [ Anti-Corruption Layer ] ──► [ Anti-Corruption Layer ]
      (Published Language)      (Translates DDA -> Loan)      (Translates DDA -> Wealth)
    

    Criteria and weights

    CriterionWhy it matters hereWeightSource of the weight
    Semantic Autonomy & IsolationChanges in one business division must never break database schemas in another (INC-4916).0.40David O'Reilly (Chief Architect)
    Linguistic Precision (Zero Polysemy)Ubiquitous language must be strictly unambiguous within each context's team and codebase.0.30Elena Rostova (Domain Governance)
    Integration Hygiene (ACL & OHS Enforcement)Cross-context integration must occur via published contracts or translation layers, never shared DBs.0.15Core Enterprise Architecture Standard
    Team Alignment (Conway's Law)Each bounded context must map 1:1 to an autonomous stream-aligned engineering value stream.0.15Organization Productivity Mandate

    Alternatives rejected

    OptionWhy it was not takenUnder what evidence it would win
    Enterprise Data Model (EDM)Caused INC-4916 3-week loan outage; unmaintainable semantic collisions across divisions.Small single-product startups with under 3 software engineers and unified domain scope.
    Shared Kernel DatabaseShared tables create tight coupling and require coordinated lockstep multi-team releases.Two tightly coupled co-located teams collaborating on a single sub-system core algorithm.
    Autonomous Bounded Contexts (Chosen)Retains selection; provides true domain isolation, ACL translation, and independent schema evolution.Multi-division enterprise banking environments with disparate business models.

    Contracts and Invariants

    Zero Cross-Context Database Sharing [INV-BCARCH-01]
      Bounded contexts must not share database schemas, tables, or connection pools.
      Cross-context data access must transit published APIs or asynchronous event streams.
    
    Context-Bound Ubiquitous Language Invariant [INV-BCARCH-02]
      Domain entities within a context must strictly adhere to that context's ubiquitous language.
      Leaking foreign domain terminology (e.g. referencing `InvestorPortfolio` inside Lending) is barred.
    
    Mandatory Anti-Corruption Layer Isolation [INV-BCARCH-03]
      Downstream contexts consuming external or legacy upstream models must implement an explicit ACL.
      Directly importing upstream domain classes or ORM entity jars across contexts is prohibited.
    

    Ownership and Handoffs

    ConcernOwnerHandoff payloadBlocked until
    Domain Governance & Strategic MapChief Architect (David O'Reilly)enterprise_context_map_specArchitecture board sign-off
    Context Dictionaries & LanguageDomain Governance Lead (Elena Rostova)ubiquitous_language_lexiconBusiness domain glossary review
    Anti-Corruption Layer ImplementationsDownstream Team Leadsacl_adapter_technical_contractSchema registry release
    Database Domain PartitioningData Architecture Guildisolated_schema_migration_planLegacy table split cutover

    Traceability

    ClaimClassificationSourceFreshness
    180 services across 3 business divisionsprovidedEnterprise scope intakeCurrent
    Incident INC-4916 3-week loan calculation outageprovidedHistorical post-mortemHistorical
    Ambiguous terms: Account, Balance, CustomerobservedStrategic domain auditCurrent
    Three autonomous bounded contextsdecidedDavid O'Reilly & Elena Rostova2026-09-15
    Anti-Corruption Layer for Commercial LendingdecidedArchitectural invariant INV-BCARCH-032026-09-15
    Prohibition of shared database tablesdecidedArchitectural invariant INV-BCARCH-012026-09-15

    Verification

    No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

    Reviewer self-check against bounded context architecture standards:

    • Linguistic Precision: PASS. Disambiguates Account, Balance, and Customer across all 3 domains.
    • Relationship Hygiene: PASS. Formally defines Customer-Supplier, OHS/PL, and ACL patterns.
    • Database Decoupling: PASS. Strict prohibition of shared tables eliminates INC-4916 schema collisions.
    • Markdown Hygiene: PASS. Native Markdown syntax strictly adheres to rule_markdown.md.

    Open Decisions

    • DEC-BCARCH-01: David O'Reilly to determine whether a shared Identity Context (IAM / SSO) should be classified as a generic subdomain Bounded Context or a shared platform utility (Owner: David O'Reilly).

    Next steps

    1. Elena Rostova publishes the ubiquitous language dictionaries to the enterprise architecture portal.
    2. Commercial Lending team implements the RetailAccountToLoanAdapter ACL in their domain service.
    3. Database Operations begins phased migration splitting legacy shared Oracle tables into isolated PostgreSQL databases per context.

    skill: bounded-context-architect

    Retail Banking & Wealth Bounded Contexts — Fitness Self-Check [BCARCH-FIN-FIT-001]

    Summary

    This fitness self-check evaluates the strategic Bounded Context architecture against three critical red-capable domain failure probes: shared mutable ownership, leaky abstraction, and implicit coupling. All targeted probes pass by design construction. A self-check is supporting evidence, never the authoritative gate. Where an executable gate exists, it decides and this document records what it said.

    Detailed Description

    Criterion [FIT-n]ProbeEvidenceResultLimits of the claim
    FIT-1: Shared Mutable OwnershipSeed a pull request where the Lending squad modifies database table schemas in the Retail Deposit database container.CI schema migration validator probe_database_cross_context_mutation verifying PR rejection with diagnostic ERR_CROSS_CONTEXT_DB_MUTATION.passConfirms database migration scripts in Git; does not evaluate direct manual DBA terminal commands.
    FIT-2: Leaky AbstractionSeed a domain entity class in Wealth Management that imports raw JPA entity classes from Retail Deposit packages directly.ArchUnit package boundary probe probe_domain_class_leakage_rejection verifying build failure on foreign context package imports with diagnostic ERR_FOREIGN_CONTEXT_CLASS_IMPORTED.passConfirms Java/Kotlin package import rules; does not inspect dynamic reflection invocations.
    FIT-3: Implicit CouplingSeed an API event consumer in Commercial Lending that assumes Retail Deposit schema fields match Lending accounting rules without an intermediate ACL.Architecture contract test probe_missing_acl_rejection verifying build failure when downstream services consume foreign events without an adapter.passConfirms consumer adapter architecture; does not verify third-party external partner message schemas.

    Residual Risk

    • Temporary schema duplication overhead when both Retail and Wealth independently maintain customer address records. Accepted by Elena Rostova with asynchronous Kafka event synchronization.

    Traceability

    ClaimClassificationSourceFreshness
    Rejection of cross-context DB mutationderivedFIT-1 probe result2026-09-15
    Rejection of foreign domain class importsderivedFIT-2 probe result2026-09-15
    Rejection of un-adapted foreign eventsderivedFIT-3 probe result2026-09-15

    Verification

    No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

    Open Decisions

    None.

    Next steps

    1. Architecture Guild incorporates ArchUnit package rules enforcing bounded context isolation in master CI workflows.
    2. Platform team configures Kafka topics adhering to Open Host Service schema validation.
    3. Conduct quarterly strategic domain review assessing bounded context boundaries against new product initiatives.

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    About this skill

    What it does

    This skill defines one explicit boundary within which a particular domain model and ubiquitous language are valid, coherent, owned, and evolvable. It identifies the boundary's purpose, decisions and behavior, terms and meanings, authoritative information, domain ownership, external dependencies, translation obligations, autonomy constraints, and transition from current model leakage.

    Use it when

    • Competing definitions or rules for the same business term are leaking through one shared model
    • A candidate area needs a clear purpose, language, decision authority, and ownership boundary
    • One model has accumulated unrelated responsibilities and divergent rates or reasons for change
    • A feature/domain slice may extend an existing context or justify a genuinely new one
    • Teams or systems mutate another model's internal state/data without an accepted contract
    • A context boundary is confused with a microservice, module, database, or organization chart

    For example: “In our monolith, changing a patient's address in the registration screen overwrites their active insurance claim records because 'Patient' is one giant shared entity across clinical care and billing.”

    What you get

    • architecture/bounded-context-architect/README.md
    • architecture/bounded-context-architect/00-overview/bounded-context-architect-overview.md
    • architecture/bounded-context-architect/verification/fitness-self-check.md

    Plus one page per business module, only where your evidence calls for it: {module}/aggregates.md, {module}/domain-events.md, {module}/invariants.md, {module}/policies.md.

    All paths are relative to the output folder you choose.

    What it will not do

    Do not use for naming a module or microservice, drawing the whole context map, tactical aggregate design, team reorganization alone, code packaging, or treating every capability as a bounded context.

    How it works

    1. Check portfolio strategy.
    2. Isolate ubiquitous language.
    3. Define boundary responsibilities.
    4. Establish authoritative information.
    5. Specify semantic dependencies.
    6. Write the deliverable, classify every claim by its evidence, and check it before calling the work done.

    What's in the package

    Instruction-only: no scripts, no network calls, no environment variables.

    • LICENSE.txt
    • SKILL.md
    • agents/openai.yaml
    • assets/output-template-artifact.md
    • assets/output-template-contract.md
    • assets/output-template-decision.md
    • assets/output-template-domain.md
    • assets/output-template-fitness.md
    • assets/output-template-mechanism.md
    • references/domain-rules.md
    • references/operating-rules.md
    • references/output-contract.md

    Find more skills like this on the Claude Skills Marketplace, the Codex Skills Marketplace and the Gemini Skills Marketplace, or browse Claude Skills for APIs & Backend.

    Do not use for naming a module or microservice, drawing the whole context map, tactical aggregate design, team reorganization alone, code packaging, or treating every capability as a bounded context.

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    Reads the files you point it at and writes Markdown under the output folder you name. No network access, no environment variables, and no bundled scripts.

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    Frequently Asked Questions

    This skill is designed to resolve architectural friction caused by 'leaky' models, such as when a single data entity (like 'Customer' or 'Order') has conflicting definitions across different departments or business units. It establishes clear ubiquitous language, ownership boundaries, and translation layers to prevent unintended side effects in complex systems.

    The package includes an OpenAI-compatible YAML configuration, comprehensive output templates for domains and contracts, and a structured set of reference rules. You will receive a complete framework for generating READMEs, overview documents, and module-specific architectural artifacts like aggregate and policy definitions.

    This is an instruction-based skill that includes an `agents/openai.yaml` configuration, making it compatible with OpenAI's GPT models and other platforms that support standardized AI agent instructions. It does not require external scripts, environment variables, or network access to function.

    No, this skill focuses strictly on strategic Domain-Driven Design (DDD) to define logical boundaries and language consistency. It is not intended for microservice naming, code packaging, or tactical aggregate design, but rather for organizing the high-level portfolio strategy that precedes those tasks.

    The skill uses a structured six-step workflow: it checks your portfolio strategy, isolates ubiquitous language, defines boundary responsibilities, establishes authoritative data sources, specifies dependencies, and verifies the output against a fitness self-check. Every architectural claim made by the agent is classified based on the evidence provided in your domain.

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