Overview

Design and document a microservices architecture with this comprehensive reference template. Mapping individual services, their APIs, data stores, and communication patterns, this template gives engineering teams a shared visual foundation for microservice design reviews, incident response, and onboarding.

Key Features

• Individual service boxes with API endpoint annotations
• Synchronous (REST/gRPC) and asynchronous (message queue/event bus) communication connectors
• Dedicated data store blocks per service for database-per-service pattern
• API gateway and service mesh layer
• External client and third-party integration zones

How to Use

1. Add a box for each microservice using the Shapes tool — label each with the service name and its primary responsibility
2. Draw API connections using the Connector tool — use solid lines for synchronous calls and dashed lines for async/event-driven communication
3. Add dedicated data store blocks below each service — label the database type (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, etc.) using the Text tool
4. Include the API gateway layer at the top to show how external clients interact with internal services
5. Annotate communication patterns with method names, topics, or event types using short text labels on each connector

Benefits

Microservices architectures are hard to hold in your head. A shared visual map makes system relationships legible — reducing the mean time to understand an incident, onboard a new engineer, or evaluate the impact of a proposed change.