The C4 Model – Misconceptions, Misuses & Mistakes
summary
C4 defines four hierarchical abstractions — context, containers, components, code — and recommends most teams start with the top two levels; common mistakes are modeling a message bus or a shared library as a single container, treating database as a vague noun, or putting APIs and schemas at the component level. Tooling advice: map containers to Docker or cloud infrastructure, generate system diagrams from Backstage or Terraform, and use Structurizr DSL to extract components from Java bytecode and keep diagrams up to date.
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chapters (21)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:31C4 Model
- 5:36Why did you reinvent UML?
- 6:09What the C4 Model is
- 8:28Notation
- 12:59Viewpoints
- 14:54"C4 is too limiting"
- 16:39What is a "database"?
- 19:54What is a "component"?
- 22:09Abstraction vs organization
- 24:40Message-driven architectures
- 28:08Shared libraries
- 30:07Microservices
- 31:28Stage 1: Monolithic architecture
- 32:12Stage 2: Microservices
- 34:43Stage 3: Conway's Law
- 36:11Micro frontends
- 36:36Dependencies to "external" containers
- 38:38Tooling
- 42:52A final note...
- 43:47Outro
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