Choreography
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Choreography is when services coordinate by reacting to each other's events without a central boss. Each service knows its part and performs it when triggered. It's like a dance where everyone knows the moves — no choreographer needed (ironic name, I know).
Real Talk
A service coordination pattern where each service reacts to domain events independently without a central coordinator. Services produce and consume events, with the overall workflow emerging from their interactions. Choreography promotes loose coupling and autonomy but can make complex flows harder to understand and debug.
When You'll Hear This
"In choreography, the inventory service reacts to OrderPlaced events without being directly called." / "Choreography works great for simple flows but becomes a nightmare to debug with 15 services."
Related Terms
Event-Driven Architecture
Event-Driven Architecture is like a gossip network. When something happens (order placed!), it broadcasts the news.
Orchestration
Orchestration is the process of automatically managing, coordinating, and scheduling where your containers run.
Pub/Sub (Pub/Sub)
Pub/Sub is like a newspaper service. Publishers write articles and drop them off.
Saga
A saga is a series of steps where each step has an undo action. If step 3 fails, you run the undo for steps 2 and 1.