What is Conformance Rule?
A conformance rule encodes an architectural invariant as code: "the domain layer must not import from the infrastructure layer", "every public endpoint must declare an owning team", "no service may call the payments database directly". Running these rules in CI gives teams a safety net that catches drift at PR time rather than during a painful audit six months later.
Related terms
- Architecture Drift — The widening gap between documented architecture and the system that actually runs in production.
- Architecture as Code — Describing system architecture in a versioned, text-based format so it can be reviewed, diffed, and validated like source code.