A Columbus civic tech group needed reliability, not hype. We split their Rails app into identity, content delivery, and reporting — just enough separation to breathe, not enough to drown in orchestration.
Like packing for a weekend in Mohican: bring what you’ll use, label it, and keep the fire-starting gear handy. Shared contracts lived in one repo with versioned protobufs; deploys stayed simple with ECS.
Right-sized services with clear handoffs beat aspirational meshes. Prepare, label, and carry only what you can manage.