# Gof Patterns And Distribution > What happens to a Gang-of-Four pattern when the collaboration crosses a process boundary, and which additional architectural contracts it may require. Covers process-local, boundary, interaction and algorithm patterns; assumptions that need rechecking at a boundary — shared state, clocks, atomicity, ordering and delivery; the transformations (Singleton to leader election, Observer to pub/sub, Iterator to pagination, Mediator to an orchestrator); and the level confusion that treats a design pattern as a substitute for an architectural one. Use when a local design is being distributed, when a pattern name is applied to a network component, when a "singleton" or a cache is expected to hold across replicas, or when a getter turns out to make a call. Does not cover the individual patterns (the gof-\* skills), saga and outbox mechanics (distributed-transactions-and-sagas, event-driven-architecture), service boundary decisions (distribution-boundaries), or failure taxonomy (failure-models). - Skill: `robsonkades/gof-patterns-and-distribution` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add robsonkades/gof-patterns-and-distribution` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/robsonkades/gof-patterns-and-distribution/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Web & Frontend - Author: robsonkades (https://skillmd.com/u/robsonkades) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/robsonkades/gof-patterns-and-distribution --- # Patterns and Distribution ## Purpose Stop a local design's guarantees from being assumed across a network. GoF patterns primarily describe collaborating objects in one address space. Local calls can still partially mutate then throw, block on I/O, or race; a process boundary additionally introduces an independent failure/ambiguity domain, serialization and operational ownership. The patterns whose names survive the crossing are the ones most likely to hide that it stopped holding. ## What a boundary removes This classification is conceptual; Java API references use Java 17. Inspect the target runtime, codec, broker and persistence versions and effective configuration before applying their guarantees. ```text Inside one process Across a boundary ────────────────────────────────── ─────────────────────────────────── A call has one process failure domain It may commit remotely while the reply is lost Latency follows local work/I/O Adds transport queues and independent tail latency A reference is the object A copy; identity does not travel Uniqueness is per class loader Uniqueness requires coordination Order follows synchronization/API Broker/protocol/topology defines its scope State can share memory State may be remote/replicated; consistency is a contract Monotonic intervals are local Clock offset and rate assumptions need explicit treatment One invocation; effects may partial Delivery may be at-most/at-least/effectively-once ``` Every transformation below follows from that table. ## Classification ```text PROCESS-LOCAL — the guarantee stops at the JVM Singleton uniqueness is per class loader, never per cluster Flyweight references are shared; nothing crosses the wire Iterator the cursor is in this process Memento opacity/lifecycle is local unless a durable snapshot contract is added BOUNDARY — the pattern manages a seam, and the seam may be a network Adapter where a foreign model, vocabulary and failure stop Proxy the pattern most able to hide that a call is remote Facade coarse granularity is how round trips are saved Bridge supported backends must satisfy the chosen contract honestly INTERACTION — the pattern shapes who talks to whom Command may become a message: schema, delivery and effect policies needed Observer becomes pub/sub with broker-specific delivery and ordering Mediator becomes an orchestrator, with its own availability Chain becomes a workflow, failing at every step ALGORITHM — largely unaffected; the choice may not be Strategy the choice of partitioner, serialiser or retry policy has system-wide effects State needs durability if progress must survive restart Template coordinate overall budget with each remote step's transport limits Visitor the element set becomes a versioned contract ``` ## The transformations | Local pattern | Distributed form | What must be added | | ------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Singleton | Leader election / a lease | Fencing tokens, or idempotency so overlap is harmless | | Flyweight | Distributed cache/content addressing—different mechanisms | Invalidation, staleness, serialization and remote/local tiers | | Iterator | Pagination/cursor | Strategy, bound, deadline, cancellation, mid-walk consistency | | Memento | Durable snapshot/checkpoint | Schema identity, compatibility, consistency and corruption recovery | | Observer | Publish/subscribe | Declared delivery/ordering; transactional bridge when committed changes must publish reliably | | Command | A message | Schema identity, delivery/effect policy, deduplication where needed, terminal outcome | | Mediator | An orchestrator | Required durable progress, deadlines, applicable compensation and availability budget | | Chain | A workflow | Per-step failure and retry, redelivery semantics, partial-effect handling | | Facade | Remote facade, gateway or BFF when appropriate | Contract, deployment, authentication, scaling and outage surface | | Proxy | A service client | Deadlines, a failure vocabulary, bulk operations | | State | State machine within a distributed workflow | Required persistence, timeout outcomes and duplicate policy; not automatically a saga | | Composite | Fan-out | Concurrency, an overall deadline, a defined partial-failure result | ## Decision rules ```text IF a requirement says "there must be only one" THEN ask "one per what?" A static field gives one per class loader. Cluster-wide singularity needs leader election, a lease, or a design where multiplicity does not matter (gof-singleton, leader-election). IF a process-local limit is configured—a pool, limiter or cache THEN model the aggregate across minimum/maximum dynamic replica count, rollout overlap and sidecars. Simple multiplication is a scenario, not a stable invariant. IF an interface designed against a local implementation is about to be implemented remotely THEN review the contract: suitable granularity, propagated deadline/context, cancellation and named failure/unknown-outcome semantics may require change. Otherwise a loop becomes N network calls (gof-proxy). IF an in-process listener is being moved to a broker THEN it is a redesign: six properties change at once — thread, transaction, ordering, delivery, failure visibility, schema (gof-observer). IF an object is sent across a boundary THEN a representation is serialized and reconstructed; reference identity does not travel. Constructor/invariant behavior is codec-specific, and the representation becomes a compatibility contract (rpc-and-api-contracts). IF a pattern name is applied to a deployed component — "the gateway is our facade", "the orchestrator is a mediator" THEN the name is a metaphor, not a design. The component has availability, authentication, scaling and an outage surface that no class has. IF the design question is really "where should this boundary be" THEN it is not an object-design question at all (distribution-boundaries). IF duplicate effects are harmful THEN choose among naturally idempotent operations, deduplication, fencing/coordination and transactional authority. Dedup stores also fail/expire; no mechanism is universal. ``` ## The level confusion ```text Design pattern objects and classes inside one component Component design modules, packages, release units Architectural pattern how a system is organised: hexagonal, CQRS, event-driven, layered Distributed pattern what crosses a network: saga, outbox, circuit breaker, bulkhead, gateway, service mesh ``` A GoF pattern is not a substitute for any of the lower three rows. Proxy is not an API gateway; Observer is not event-driven architecture; Mediator is not orchestration; Facade is not a backend-for-frontend; Memento is not event sourcing; Flyweight is not a distributed cache. In each pair the second has an operational existence — deployment, availability, scaling, failure — that the first does not, and using one word for both is how a network hop becomes invisible in a design discussion. Patterns do participate in architectures: an adapter implements a port in hexagonal architecture, a command is a CQRS write, a state machine is a saga's core. That is composition across levels, not equivalence. ## Review checklist - [ ] Every "only one" requirement names its scope, and the mechanism matches - [ ] Process-local limits are modeled across autoscaling and rollout replica ranges - [ ] No interface hides remoteness: deadlines, failure types and granularity are in the contract - [ ] Any getter/per-item remote call is explicit, bounded and protected from accidental fan-out - [ ] Published representations have explicit schema identity and compatibility/unknown-value policy - [ ] Delivery semantics drive idempotency/deduplication and atomicity requirements - [ ] Fan-out has an overall deadline and a defined partial-failure result - [ ] Durable workflows persist their state and treat timeouts as real events - [ ] Pattern names are not used for deployed components without saying so ## References Deliver the boundary, assumptions that changed, required guarantees and owners, then the smallest contract changes and failure checks. Keep unsupported guarantees conditional and route detailed protocol design to the specialist skills below. - [Boundary classification](references/boundary-classification.md) — all twenty-three placed in the four classes, with what survives a boundary crossing, what silently stops holding, and the specific additions each distributed form requires. Read when distributing an existing design. - [Design patterns against architectural patterns](references/design-vs-architecture.md) — the four levels with what belongs at each, the pairs most often conflated (Proxy/gateway, Observer/EDA, Mediator/orchestration, Memento/event sourcing, Flyweight/distributed cache), how patterns legitimately participate in architectures, and the escalation ladder from a class to a service. Read when a pattern is being proposed as an architecture, or vice versa.