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Best Practices

Flowcore Platform Best Practices

At Flowcore, we use our own platform for development, which has led us to discover and refine a set of best practices. These guidelines will help you make the most of the Flowcore Platform and build robust, scalable, and maintainable data systems.

Versioning

Implement versioning for all Flow Types and Event Types. This practice allows for easier management of breaking changes and maintains backward compatibility.

  • Naming Convention: Use names like organization.0 for Flow Types and organization.created.0 for Event Types.
  • Benefits:
    • Easier to reclassify data
    • Simplifies maintaining backward compatibility
    • Allows for smooth transitions when updating data structures

Keep Services Simple

Create simple services that adhere to the single responsibility principle. This approach leverages Flowcore’s strengths and promotes a more maintainable architecture.

  • Decoupling: Extend functionality by hooking into streams, allowing for decoupled services.
  • Data Independence: Each service can build its own data based on events, reducing cross-service communication.
  • Scalability: Simple services are easier to scale and maintain independently.

Leverage Production Data in Development

One of Flowcore’s strengths is the ability to safely use production data in development and testing environments.

  • Reliability: This practice often results in “it just works, first try!” experiences, even with multiple decoupled services.
  • Contract Definition: Events define the contracts used when communicating with external systems, simplifying integration.
  • Realistic Testing: Using real data ensures your development and testing environments closely mirror production.

Embrace Event-Driven Architecture

Utilize Flowcore’s event-driven nature to create loosely coupled, real-time systems.

  • Flexibility: Easy to add new services or modify existing ones without disrupting the entire system.
  • Real-time Processing: Events enable immediate data processing and updates.
  • Audit Trail: Event streams provide a natural audit trail of all data changes.

Utilize Appropriate Database Types

Choose the right database type for each read model based on your specific use case.

  • Diversity: Don’t hesitate to use different databases for various domains (e.g., ArangoDB, PostgreSQL).
  • Multiple Databases: Consider using multiple database types for the same data to leverage their unique strengths.
  • Synchronization: Trust Flowcore and the transformers to handle data synchronization across different read models.

Continuous Learning and Improvement

Stay updated with Flowcore’s evolving features and best practices.

  • Community Engagement: Participate in the Flowcore community to learn from others’ experiences.
  • Feedback: Provide feedback to the Flowcore team to help shape the platform’s future development.

By following these best practices, you can maximize the benefits of the Flowcore Platform, creating efficient, scalable, and maintainable data systems. Remember, these practices are born from real-world usage of the platform, ensuring their practicality and effectiveness in production environments.