Verifying architectural integrity through fitness functions
As systems evolve, maintaining architectural integrity becomes increasingly challenging. Even teams committed to Clean Architecture’s principles can inadvertently introduce changes that compromise their systems’ carefully crafted boundaries. This risk has led architects to develop fitness functions which are automated tests that verify that architectural principles are correctly implemented and detect any drift from those principles over time.
The concept of architectural fitness functions, introduced by Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, and Patrick Kua in their book Building Evolutionary Architectures, provides a systematic approach to maintaining architectural integrity. Just as unit tests verify code behavior, fitness functions verify architectural characteristics. By detecting violations early in the development process (an approach known as shift left), these tests help teams maintain Clean Architecture&...
