Sequence / fan-out flow

Show order and branching of a request so people stop arguing from a box diagram.

cloud-architecture

Related: Reference architecture

When to use

Use when order or fan-out is the point. Do not use for static topology (reference architecture). Do not use for human swimlanes.

Guidelines

Number the hops. Fan-out is visible as multiple numbered peers, not as spaghetti.

Example

Ship confirm path

One confirm fans out to ledger, carrier, and customer notice — in that order.

Ship confirm
1 Ledger write
2 Carrier event
3 Customer notice

Numbers are order, not preference

Confirm fans to three numbered hops. Steal the numbers-as-order rule.

Rules

  1. Hops are numbered in execution order.
  2. Fan-out children share a parent hop; do not hide that.
  3. Title states the path’s rule (order, sync vs async) in a sentence.
  4. No unlabeled arrows.

User recipe

Goal: explain a request path.

Inputs: hops in order, fan-out children.

Constraints: Sequence / fan-out Rules.

Prompt skeleton: “Make a sequence/fan-out slide in family cloud-architecture using the Sequence / fan-out flow rules. Hops: [ordered list]. Fan-out: [children].”

Anti-patterns