Cloud Native Architecture Cheat Sheet

Covers the twelve-factor app principles, microservices patterns, containers, and the CNCF landscape that define cloud native systems.

2 PagesIntermediateJan 25, 2026

Twelve-Factor App (selected)

Core methodology for building cloud native applications.

Codebase- One codebase tracked in version control, many deploys
Config- Store config in environment variables, never in code
Dependencies- Explicitly declare and isolate dependencies (no reliance on system-wide packages)
Backing Services- Treat databases, queues, caches as attached resources via config, swappable without code change
Processes- Execute the app as stateless processes; persist state in a backing store
Disposability- Fast startup and graceful shutdown to support elastic scaling
Logs- Treat logs as event streams, write to stdout, let the environment aggregate them

CNCF Landscape (key projects)

Common tools associated with cloud native architecture.

Kubernetes- Container orchestration, the de facto cloud native runtime
Envoy- High-performance proxy used as the data plane in many service meshes
Istio / Linkerd- Service mesh implementations for traffic management, mTLS, and observability
Prometheus- Metrics collection and alerting standard for cloud native systems
Helm- Package manager for Kubernetes, templating manifests into 'charts'
OpenTelemetry- Vendor-neutral instrumentation standard for traces, metrics, and logs

Health/Readiness Endpoint Pattern

A minimal Express health check enabling orchestrators to manage lifecycle.

javascript

app.get('/healthz', (req, res) => {  res.status(200).json({ status: 'ok' }); // liveness});app.get('/readyz', async (req, res) => {  const dbOk = await checkDatabaseConnection();  res.status(dbOk ? 200 : 503).json({ ready: dbOk }); // readiness});

Pro Tip

Separate liveness from readiness probes — a pod can be alive (process running) but not ready (still warming a cache or connecting to a DB); conflating the two causes premature traffic routing or unnecessary restarts.

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