Navigating the Outbox Pattern

Full episode notes and transcript: https://threedots.tech/episode/event-driven-architecture/

Quick takeaways

• Event-driven architecture (EDA) is powerful but tricky – it’s great for scaling and decoupling, but has many hidden traps.
• Observability is essential – debugging async systems without tracing, logs, and correlation IDs is almost impossible.
• Use the outbox pattern – it’s the safest way to publish events without losing data.
• Design events carefully – large, generic events can lead to tight coupling and painful refactors.
• Avoid over-engineering – sometimes synchronous systems or simple monoliths are just better.
• Start with sync if unsure – it’s easier to migrate from a well-structured synchronous system to async later than the other way around.