The last Python Architecture you will ever need?

Should features live in several independent Microservices, or is a Monolith the way to go? What kind of setup is the best one for the code in a repo? Organizing is difficult.

"... I'll just put it in a utils folder for now ..."

There's a thing called Polylith. I've written about different aspects of it before. Polylith is an architecture (and a tool) focusing on the Developer and Deployment experience. It is developed by Joakim Tengstrand, Furkan Bayraktar and James Trunk.

The Polylith Architecture is a fresh take on how to share code, and offers a nice and simple solution to the Monolith vs Microservice tradeoffs. In addition to that, it is a good fit for functional programming. Some time ago, I got an idea: how about bringing a couple of the good things from there to here? So I developed something that I believe could be useful for many Python teams out there.

I already released a preview in early 2022, it was missing some essential features and the great developer experience wasn't really there yet. Also, I had little knowledge about how to package Python apps & libraries, but have learned a lot since then.

Today, I believe the Python tools for the Polylith Architecture is ready to use in the Real World. You will find version 1 on PyPI.

A couple of Poetry plugins

I have developed it as two different Poetry plugins. One of them - the Multiproject plugin - adds support for workspaces to the popular Poetry tool, by adding a new command called build-project.

The second one - Polylith plugin - adds useful tooling support for the Polylith Architecture itself. With the tooling, you can add components & projects in a simple way and also keep track of what's happening in the workspace.

Have a look at the repo and the docs.

An Architecture well suited for Monorepos

Polylith is using a components-first architecture. The components are building blocks, very much like LEGO. The code is separated from the infrastructure and the building of artifacts. This may sound complicated, but it isn't.

In a way, it is about:

1. thinking about code as LEGO bricks, that can be combined into features.
2. making it easy to reuse code across apps, tools, libraries, serverless functions and services.
3. Keeping it simple.

Have a look at these introductory videos, describing Polylith in Python and the tooling support:

Python with the Polylith Architecture

The Poetry Polylith Plugin

Give it a try! I would love to hear you feedback.

^{Top photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash}