Engineering

1 min read

From Monolith to Workflows

Breaking down big processes into manageable, observable workflows.

Large, monolithic processes are hard to change and hard to debug. Workflows can help.

Identify natural boundaries

Look for steps that have clear inputs and outputs, or that different people or systems own. Those are good workflow boundaries.

One workflow, one responsibility

Each workflow should do one thing well. Compose larger processes from smaller workflows instead of building one giant pipeline.

Make state explicit

Track workflow state (e.g. pending, in progress, done, failed) in a single place. That makes retries, audits, and debugging straightforward.

Design for partial failure

Assume steps will fail. Use timeouts, retries with backoff, and clear failure handling so one step doesn’t block the whole process.

Observe everything

Log events, duration, and outcomes at each step. When something goes wrong, you should be able to see where and why.

Moving from a monolith to workflows takes time, but it pays off in clarity, reliability, and the ability to change one part without breaking the rest.