THE GITHTML FIELD GUIDE
Architecture overview template that explains system boundaries
An architecture overview should explain the system's purpose, boundaries, major responsibilities, and external dependencies before showing internal classes. Use a small context view, a representative request journey, and a list of important constraints. Identify the revision and distinguish deployed behavior from planned architecture so the document can be trusted.
Choose the right level of detail
Start with the people or systems that use the product and the external systems it relies on. C4's context diagram guidance focuses on that surrounding landscape rather than low-level technology. Apply the same restraint to prose: explain what a component is responsible for before listing its framework. Name what the team owns and what it only integrates with. Do not place every library on the first diagram. A reader trying to understand an operational boundary should not need to decipher the application's full dependency tree.
Walk through one representative journey
Use an illustrative document-export service: a user requests an export, an API validates the request, a worker prepares the file, and storage retains the result according to a stated policy. For each handoff, describe the data, the responsible component, and a failure the caller must handle. This is a fictional teaching example, not a statement about gitHtml's internals. Include a text equivalent beside any diagram so the essential relationships remain readable when images are unavailable or too small. Distinguish synchronous steps from deferred work where that affects the user's experience.
- Purpose: identify the user outcome the system exists to support.
- Boundaries: name owned components and external services separately.
- Constraints: describe the important limit and where its evidence lives.
Tie the overview to evidence
Link major claims to configuration, interface definitions, or more detailed decisions at a specific revision. Label uncertain relationships rather than completing a diagram from intuition. Add an owner and a review trigger, such as a new external service or changed data boundary. Keep alternatives and old designs in their decision records instead of blending them into the current-state overview. Export a static, readable HTML page with headings and captions; an interactive diagram can be supplementary, but the architectural explanation should not depend on enabling JavaScript.
Sources and further reading
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