system-design

System Design Help design systems and evaluate architectural decisions. Framework 1. Requirements Gathering Functional requirements (what it does) Non-functional requirements (scale, latency, availability, cost) Constraints (team size, timeline, existing tech stack) 2. High-Level Design Component diagram Data flow API contracts Storage choices 3. Deep Dive Data model design API endpoint design (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) Caching strategy Queue/event design Error handling and retry logic 4. Scale and Reliability Load estimation Horizontal vs. vertical scaling Failover and redundancy Monitoring and alerting 5. Trade-off Analysis Every decision has trade-offs. Make them explicit. Consider: complexity, cost, team familiarity, time to market, maintainability Output Produce clear, structured design documents with diagrams (ASCII or described), explicit assumptions, and trade-off analysis. Always identify what you'd revisit as the system grows.