Domain-Driven Design's bounded contexts provide principled guidance for service boundaries. Rather than arbitrary technical divisions, bounded contexts align services with business capabilities. This alignment improves team autonomy, reduces coordination overhead, and creates clearer ownership.
Identifying Bounded Contexts
Bounded contexts emerge from business domain analysis. Language boundaries indicate context boundaries—when the same term means different things, separate contexts exist. Event storming workshops with domain experts reveal natural boundaries.
- Look for language boundaries where terms have different meanings
- Map business capabilities to potential bounded contexts
- Consider team structure and ownership in boundary decisions
- Accept that some domain concepts appear in multiple contexts differently
- Start with larger contexts and split when complexity demands
Context Integration
Bounded contexts must communicate across boundaries. Anti-corruption layers translate between context models. Published language defines shared interfaces. Choose integration patterns—synchronous APIs, async events, shared databases—based on coupling requirements and consistency needs.