chore: Conduct comprehensive architectural review of backend-fw

[MehmetBegun]

Description

The backend-fw repository requires a comprehensive architectural review to identify technical debt and ensure alignment with organizational standards. This serves as a critical quality gate to maintain framework scalability and performance before proceeding with new feature development. This review is essential to mitigate long-term maintenance risks and enforce best practices across the codebase.

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Ownership, Deadline & Effort

• Team Owner: Backend
• Individual Owner: @MehmetBegun
• Deadline: 2026-01-15 24:00 (end of day, explicitly stated)
• Estimated Effort: 3 hours

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Deliverables

• Comprehensive Review Document: A minimum 1-page detailed report (PDF or Markdown) documenting the repository's health, architectural patterns, and specific areas for improvement.
• Review Summary Comment: A high-level summary posted as a GitHub comment for quick stakeholder visibility.
• Issue Backlog: A set of linked GitHub issues for any identified bugs, technical debt, or refactoring needs.
• Formal Status Update: A clear Approval or Request for Changes on the repository’s current state.

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Scope

In Scope:

• Assessment of code structure, modularity, and design patterns.
• Identification of outdated dependencies and security vulnerabilities.
• Review of API consistency, naming conventions, and documentation.
• Evaluation of test coverage, error handling, and logging patterns.
• Compilation of a formal, minimum 1-page review document.

Out of Scope:

• Active refactoring or code fixes (these must be logged as separate issues).
• Front-end integration testing.
• Performance benchmarking/load testing.

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Acceptance Criteria

• A comprehensive review document of at least one page is produced and shared.
• Repository structure is verified against the organization’s standard backend architecture.
• All critical security vulnerabilities and deprecated dependencies are documented.
• Follow-up tasks are created as actionable GitHub issues with appropriate labels.
• The review summary is published as a GitHub comment for immediate team visibility.
• The entire task is completed within the allocated 3-hour window.

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Domain-Specific Notes: Engineering

• Dependencies: Scan for deprecated or vulnerable libraries in the dependency manifest (e.g., package.json).
• APIs: Validate that REST/GraphQL endpoints adhere to internal naming conventions and return standard HTTP status codes.
• Documentation: Verify that the README and inline comments provide sufficient context for new contributors.
• Assumption: The reviewer has administrative or read-access to the backend-fw repository and internal architectural guidelines.

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Validation / Review Requirements

• Success Validation: The review summary is published, follow-up issues are logged, and findings are communicated to the lead architect.
• Required Reviewers: Engineering Lead or Senior Backend Architect.
• Definition of Done: The 1-page review document is submitted, and the repository status is formally updated in the tracking system.

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Additional Context

• Related Repository: backend-fw

[MehmetBegun]

Backend Framework Architectural Review - Summary

Overall Assessment

backend-fw is a powerful Spring Boot-based framework offering comprehensive infrastructure capabilities. It provides rich features in areas like exception handling, security, persistence, messaging, observability, and time governance.

However, a significant gap exists in "enforcement," as many core architectural patterns and framework designs can be bypassed by services. This leads to code duplication, behavioral inconsistencies, increased bug risks, and higher onboarding costs for new developers.

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Key Strengths

• Comprehensive Exception Handling: Centralized logic for managing application errors.
• Strong Time Governance: Utilization of FwClock for consistent time management.
• Rich Foundation Layer: Robust BaseEntity and BaseRepository implementations.
• Query Framework: Flexible tools for data retrieval.
• Security Infrastructure: Robust JWT-based security.
• Messaging Infrastructure: Reliable Outbox pattern implementation.
• Observability: Integrated metrics and structured logging.
• Governance Capabilities: Presence of ArchUnit and Testcontainers indicates a commitment to quality and architectural testing.

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Key Weaknesses & Areas for Improvement

1. Critical Spring Boot Version Mismatch

The pom.xml specifies Spring Boot 4.0.1, which is not a recognized stable version. This is a critical finding requiring immediate verification and an update to a stable 3.x release.

2. Weak Enforcement

Many framework patterns are currently optional and can be easily bypassed by developers, including:

• Validation & Pagination
• Soft Delete logic
• Security annotations
• FwClock usage

3. Missing Capabilities

Gaps exist in the following areas:

• API versioning
• Automated Correlation ID propagation
• Consumer base classes
• Secrets management

4. Lack of Architectural Rule Enforcement

Documented architectural rules are not enforced at build-time via ArchUnit tests, leading to gradual architectural drift.

5. Inconsistent Package Naming

The presence of both backendfw and backend_fw packages indicates a naming inconsistency that requires standardization.

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Conclusion

The next evolution of the framework must shift focus from "convenience" to "ownership and enforcement." Build-time (via ArchUnit) and runtime enforcements must be added, bypass paths eliminated, and architectural contracts rigorously applied to ensure consistency and reduce technical debt.

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Final Status

• Status: Request for Changes
• Formal Status Update: Request for Changes
• Rationale: The backend-fw project lacks mechanisms to enforce mandatory use of its capabilities, leading to architectural drift and increased maintenance costs. Addressing the identified improvements is critical for long-term sustainability.
• Report Reference: BackendFw_ArchitecturalReview_Report.md