Patterns from production
Architecture Patterns
Short, visual notes on customer-data decisions that become expensive once a CDP reaches production.
Map of the seven patterns
Map of the seven architecture patterns over the customer data journey, in four stages plus a foundation band. First stage, identity: pattern 01, split profiles, on identity as a contract with the source. Second stage, profile and state, with two patterns: 02, one object for all, on separating operational state from customer state, and below it 03, writes that collide, on Profile writes as shared state. Third stage, decision: pattern 06, duplicated eligibility, on modeling Decisioning inputs by consumption. Fourth stage, activation: pattern 05, every channel from zero, on reusing the data foundation across channels. Below the four stages, a foundation band crossing all of them holds the two patterns that belong to no single stage: 04, temporary stays, on the exit path an MVP architecture needs, and 07, only you can run it, on handover as architecture. Each cell links to its page, and the full list with the long titles sits right below the map.
07 patterns
Identity → Operations- Identity
Identity is a source contract
A graph resolves evidence. It cannot invent relationships that sources never emit.
Read pattern → - Customer state
Separate operational state from customer state
Immediate orchestration and queryable facts do not need the same representation.
Read pattern → - Profile governance
Profile writes are shared-state engineering
Multiple writers turn the profile into shared operational state.
Read pattern → - Delivery
MVP architecture needs an exit path
Starting narrow is valid. Making temporary choices permanent by accident is not.
Read pattern → - Channels
Reuse the data foundation across channels
Add channels by reusing customer and decision foundations, not rebuilding them.
Read pattern → - Decisioning
Model Decisioning inputs by consumption
Decision inputs have different lifecycles, and they do not all belong in the profile.
Read pattern → - Operations
Handover is architecture
An architecture is not complete until someone else can operate it.
Read pattern →
Architecture lens
One consistent way to read architecture
Every pattern answers the same five questions before recommending a solution.
- 01What breaks
- 02Where the state lives
- 03Who owns it
- 04What trade-off we accept
- 05How it evolves