The C4 model for visualising software architecture
summary
C4 defines four concrete abstraction levels — Context, Containers, Components, Code — and insists diagrams match the code so maps stop being lies. It models an internet banking system: browser SPA + mobile app, Spring Boot API and monolith containers, Oracle schema, Mainframe integration, showing that containers are the deployable units and components live inside them. Use a diagram key, unidirectional arrows, and tool-driven models (paper/whiteboard for design, Structurizr or as‑code tools for scale and reverse engineering) to keep diagrams accurate.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:25Context
- 0:54Architecture diagrams
- 4:42How many people use UML
- 6:32The Model Code Gap
- 8:50The Common Language
- 10:51Software Systems
- 13:59Static Structure Diagrams
- 17:17Example Diagrams
- 20:56Container Diagrams
- 26:31Component Diagrams
- 28:18UML Class Diagrams
- 28:46C4 Notation
- 29:48System Landcape
- 30:30Dynamic diagram
- 33:00Summary
- 34:04Questions
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