📚 Architecture Compliance & Required Documentation¶
Aligned with Azure Well-Architected Framework
This document defines the mandatory and optional documentation artifacts, architectural controls, and technical standards required for all solutions deployed on Azure.
It applies to: - APIs - Microservices - Workers / Jobs - Gateways - Platforms - Infrastructure components
This document acts as: - Architecture governance baseline - Release gate - Audit and compliance reference
📘 Compliance Legend (Mandatory at Project Start)¶
All requirements in this document are classified using the following indicators. Every item is aligned to one or more Azure Well-Architected Framework pillars.
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ❗ | Mandatory (release blocker if missing) |
| ❗🛡️ | Mandatory by international or security standards |
| ❗📜 | Mandatory by internal best practices |
| ❗🔐 | Mandatory for security reasons |
| ❗⚠️ | Conditional (architecture, workload, or context-based) |
| ⭐ | Recommended (non-blocking) |
| 👤✔️ | Team or product decision |
🏗️ Azure Well-Architected Pillars Mapping¶
| Pillar | Primary Audience | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability | SysOps / SRE | Availability, resilience, recovery |
| Security | SecOps / DevSecOps | Identity, secrets, compliance |
| Cost Optimization | FinOps | Cost control, efficiency |
| Operational Excellence | DevOps / Platform | CI/CD, automation, governance |
| Performance Efficiency | Developers | Code quality, performance |
✅ Architecture Compliance Checklist¶
This checklist defines the minimum mandatory controls per Azure Well-Architected pillar.
❌ If a mandatory (❗) control is not met, the solution must not be released.
📚 Cross-Cutting Required Documentation¶
These artifacts are required regardless of workload type.
🧑💻 Technical Documentation — Developers¶
- ❗📜 API documentation (OpenAPI / Swagger)
- ❗📜 Technical README (Markdown)
- 👤✔️ Project-specific development guidelines
🧩 Functional Documentation¶
- ❗ Process flow diagrams
- ❗ UML diagrams (when applicable)
- ❗ Documentation portal (public or private, depending on context)
📋 Management Documentation — Product / SCRUM¶
- ❗📜 Documented user stories
- ❗📜 Acceptance criteria defined
- 👤✔️ Roadmap and prioritized backlog
🔁 Reliability — SysOps / SRE¶
| Obligation | Control |
|---|---|
| ❗ | Services deployed across at least two zones or regions |
| ❗ | Health checks and readiness/liveness probes |
| ❗ | Automated backups with tested restore procedures |
| ❗📜 | Documented Disaster Recovery (DR) plan |
| ❗📜 | SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs defined |
| ❗ | Critical alerts configured and validated |
| ❗📜 | Incident response runbooks available |
🔐 Security — SecOps / DevSecOps¶
| Obligation | Control |
|---|---|
| ❗🔐 | Centralized authentication (SSO / IAM) |
| ❗🔐 | Least privilege access enforced |
| ❗🔐 | Secrets stored in secure vault (e.g., Azure Key Vault) |
| ❗🛡️ | SAST integrated into CI pipelines |
| ❗⚠️ | DAST enabled when workload requires it |
| ❗🛡️ | Dependency and container image scanning |
| ❗ | Compliance with corporate security policies |
💰 Cost Optimization — FinOps¶
| Obligation | Control |
|---|---|
| ❗ | Budgets and cost alerts configured |
| ❗📜 | Resources tagged according to cost governance standards |
| ❗ | Automatic shutdown of non-production environments |
| ❗⚠️ | Savings plans or reservations evaluated |
| ❗📜 | Periodic cost reviews documented |
| ❗ | Cost metrics visible to delivery teams |
⚙️ Operational Excellence — DevOps / Platform¶
| Obligation | Control |
|---|---|
| ❗ | CI/CD pipelines defined and versioned as code |
| ❗ | Infrastructure defined as Code (IaC) |
| ❗ | Automated deployments enabled |
| ❗📜 | Rollback strategy documented or automated |
| ❗ | Artifacts versioned and traceable |
| ❗ | Environment parity (dev / qa / prod) |
| ❗ | Observability, logging, and monitoring integrated |
🚀 Performance & Quality — Developers¶
| Obligation | Control |
|---|---|
| ❗📜 | Coding standards defined and enforced |
| ❗ | Minimum automated test coverage met |
| ❗🛡️ | Quality gates configured (SonarQube or equivalent) |
| ⭐ | Performance and load analysis |
| ❗ | Proper error and exception handling |
| ❗📜 | Minimum technical documentation available |
📌 Final Notes¶
- Applies to new developments
- Applies to major architectural or functional changes
- Must be reviewed on every release
🚫 Non-compliance blocks the release.