Beyond Solid Principles

Beyond SOLID — System-Level Architecture Principles

Analyze source code and system architecture for violations of ten foundational design principles that govern how modules, services, layers, and components are structured and interact. Produce actionable findings with severity ratings, code/architecture locations, and concrete remediation suggestions.

These principles operate at the architecture scale — modules, services, bounded contexts, layers, APIs — complementing the class-level SOLID principles.

Subcommands

Request a full audit or focus on a single principle:

When no subcommand is specified, default to checking all ten principles. When a principle is mentioned by name (even without the command prefix), match it to the appropriate subcommand.

Workflow

1. Identify Target Code

Determine what code or architecture to analyze:

• When files or a directory are provided, use those.
• When a service, module, or component is referenced by name, locate it.
• When ambiguous, ask which files, directories, or services to scan.

These principles apply to any language and any architecture style — monoliths, modular monoliths, microservices, serverless, event-driven, layered, hexagonal, etc. Adapt the principle checks to the idioms and scale of the target system.

For smaller codebases, focus on module/package boundaries, dependency direction, and internal layering. For distributed systems, also consider service boundaries, API contracts, data ownership, messaging patterns, and operational resilience.

2. Load Principle References

Before analyzing, read the reference file(s) for the requested principle(s):

• references/soc.md for Separation of Concerns
• references/srp-sys.md for Single Responsibility (system-level)
• references/dry.md for DRY
• references/demeter.md for Law of Demeter
• references/coupling.md for Loose Coupling, High Cohesion
• references/evolvability.md for Build for Change
• references/resilience.md for Design for Failure
• references/kiss.md for KISS
• references/pola.md for Principle of Least Surprise
• references/yagni.md for YAGNI

For a full audit (beyond-solid-principles), read all ten.

3. Analyze

For each target file, module, or service boundary, apply the violation patterns from the loaded references. Think carefully about each pattern — not every heuristic match is a true violation. Consider context, system scale, team size, and maturity.

Key analysis dimensions:

• Static structure: dependency direction, import graphs, layer boundaries.
• Change patterns: which files/modules change together (if VCS history is available).
• Runtime topology: service call chains, data flow, failure propagation paths.
• API contracts: consistency, encapsulation, versioning, naming conventions.
• Operational posture: timeouts, retries, circuit breakers, health checks.

4. Report Findings

Present findings using this structure:

Per Violation

**[PRINCIPLE] Violation — Severity: HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW**
Location: `filename` or `service/module`, lines ~XX-YY (if applicable)
Issue: Clear description of what violates the principle and why it matters.
Suggestion: Concrete remediation approach with brief code or architecture sketch if helpful.

Severity guidelines:

• HIGH: Active maintenance pain, production risk, blocks independent evolution, or causes cascading failures.
• MEDIUM: Architecture smell that will cause problems as the system grows or as more teams contribute.
• LOW: Minor design impurity, worth noting but fine to defer.

Summary

After all findings, provide:

• A count table: | Principle | HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW |
• Top 3 priorities: which violations to fix first and why.
• Overall assessment: one paragraph on the system's structural health and evolvability posture.

5. Refactor Mode (Optional)

When a fix or refactoring is requested (e.g., "fix this", "refactor it", "show me the clean version"), produce refactored code or an architecture proposal that resolves the identified violations. Explain each change briefly.

Pragmatism Guidelines

These are guidelines, not laws. Apply judgment:

• Small projects and prototypes get a lighter touch. Don't flag a weekend project for lacking circuit breakers or API versioning.
• Some "violations" are conscious trade-offs. When a rationale is documented (e.g., in an ADR), acknowledge it rather than insisting on purity.
• Scale matters. A single-service CRUD app does not need the same architectural rigor as a platform serving millions of requests. Calibrate severity to context.
• Principles have productive tensions. DRY conflicts with loose coupling across service boundaries. KISS conflicts with resilience patterns. YAGNI conflicts with evolvability. Flag the tension and offer judgment, not dogma.
• Prefer actionable findings over exhaustive catalogs. Five important findings beat twenty trivial ones.

Example Interaction

User: sw-coupling (with a codebase directory)

Claude:

1. Reads references/coupling.md
2. Analyzes the directory for coupling/cohesion violations
3. Reports findings with locations, severity, and suggestions
4. Provides a summary with priorities