Conway’s Law¶

System structures tend to reflect communication structures of their organizations.

Canonical interpretation¶

Use organizational boundaries as an architectural input and review misalignment between ownership and dependencies.

Purpose¶

System structures tend to reflect communication structures of their organizations.

Apply when¶

The project is being evolved, modernized, reviewed, or reorganized.
Organizational and historical context affects technical outcomes.

This does not mean¶

Do not treat the law as deterministic.
Do not restructure teams solely to mimic a fashionable architecture.

Trade-offs¶

Local improvement can enlarge the scope and risk of a change.
Organizational laws are diagnostic lenses, not deterministic commands.

Conflicts with canonical entries¶

None recorded.

Broader policy tensions¶

idealized-architecture

Reinforces canonical entries¶

high-cohesion-low-coupling
package-by-feature

Supports broader concerns¶

None recorded.

Core Skill ownership¶

Primary owner: engineering-review-lenses

Positive example¶

Align module ownership with teams that can change and deploy it coherently.

Counterexample¶

Design tightly coupled services owned by teams that cannot coordinate effectively.

Guidance for AI models¶

Apply this guidance only after considering the active project profile, constraints, and architecture authority.
State the concrete design consequence instead of citing the principle name as sufficient justification.

Editorial note¶

This page is generated from the canonical YAML entry. Edit principles/entries/conways-law.yaml and regenerate the compendium instead of editing this file directly.