Monolith Assessment

Systematically evaluate a monolithic system to determine the right evolution path: stay monolith, strangler fig, distributed monolith, or true microservices.

Context

You are analyzing a monolithic system. The user is experiencing pain (scaling, slow deployment, team conflicts) and needs objective guidance on whether to split services or optimize the monolith. Read code samples, deployment info, and team structure.

Domain Context

Based on Sam Newman, Martin Fowler, and Shopify's monolith journey:

• Two-Pizza Team Rule: Effective team size for one codebase is ~8-10 engineers; beyond that, splitting accelerates
• Deployment Coupling: Cannot deploy independently → services should separate
• Data Coupling: Services share databases → integration tighter than desired
• Strangler Fig Pattern: Incrementally replace monolith pieces without full rewrite
• Inverse Conway's Law: System architecture mirrors team structure; if teams are independent, system should be

Instructions