Domain-Driven Design: Strategic Patterns

Bounded contexts, ubiquitous language, and context maps — the high-level tools for taming large domains.

January 15, 2026

#ddd#bounded-context

Strategic DDD is about dividing a large domain into Bounded Contexts — explicit boundaries within which a model applies consistently. Each context has its own Ubiquitous Language shared between developers and domain experts. A Context Map documents how contexts relate: Shared Kernel, Customer-Supplier, Conformist, Anti-Corruption Layer, or Open Host Service.

yaml

OrderContext:
  upstream: InventoryContext  # Inventory is upstream supplier
  downstream: ShippingContext # Shipping conforms to Order
  relationship: Customer-Supplier

PaymentContext:
  relationship: Shared-Kernel  # shared Money value object

Context Map example

Dependency Injection and IoC Containers
Invert control of dependency creation to keep classes decoupled from their collaborators and trivially testable.
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The Observer Pattern and Event-Driven Design
Decouple publishers from subscribers by letting objects register interest in events without the producer knowing who is listening.
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The Strategy Pattern: Encapsulating Algorithms
Define a family of algorithms, encapsulate each one, and make them interchangeable — open for extension, closed for modification.
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Dependency Injection and IoC Containers

The Observer Pattern and Event-Driven Design

The Strategy Pattern: Encapsulating Algorithms