> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ironoctopus.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Templates

> The three standard architectures in the Iron Octopus Architecture Library, what each one suits and costs, and how to apply or customize one.

The Iron Octopus Architecture Library has three standard architectures. Each is a complete, published architecture: components, relationships, decisions, tradeoffs and known limits. Applying one gives a new app a sound structure from its first feature.

## The standards

| Standard | Style | What it is |
| - | - | - |
| **Full-Stack Product** | Modular monolith | One deployable application with explicit domain boundaries inside it, background jobs, and shared operational services. |
| **Service Platform** | Service-oriented platform | API-first, with services aligned to business domains, each owning its data, connected by explicit contracts and asynchronous integration. |
| **Event-Driven Workflow** | Event-driven workflow | Durable asynchronous workflows: events come in, an orchestrator coordinates idempotent workers, with retries, dead-letter handling and auditable state. |

## Choosing one

| Standard | Choose it when | What you accept |
| - | - | - |
| Full-Stack Product | You're building one product and want speed, simple operations and transactional consistency. Most new apps start here. | All modules share one deployment and fail together. Scaling one part independently means extracting it later. Boundaries must be enforced in code and tests. |
| Service Platform | Separate teams or domains need to own, deploy and scale their parts independently. | Network failures become normal. Transactions across services need sagas or compensation. Platform and monitoring work is mandatory. |
| Event-Driven Workflow | The app is mostly long-running, asynchronous processes that must recover from failure. | Eventual consistency and duplicate delivery are normal. Debugging needs correlation IDs and tracing. Ordering, replay and retention need explicit rules. |

If you're unsure, start with **Full-Stack Product**. You can evolve it later with new versions.

## Apply a standard

**1. Open the Library**

Open the project, choose **Architecture**, then the **Library** tab.

**2. Inspect it**

Select a standard to see its **Template version**, **Structured characteristics**, **Version changelog** and **Template preview**. Fill in any inputs under **Configure this draft**.

**3. Choose the project's authority**

* **Managed standard**: the selected version, unchanged, is the project's architecture.
* **Customizable copy**: creates a project-owned draft that can evolve independently, so you can edit it and publish your own versions.

**4. Publish**

A managed standard is ready straight away. A project copy starts as a draft: review it, then publish it. See [update and publish a version](https://docs.ironoctopus.ai/architecture/update-and-publish.md).

## Your own templates

On Pioneer you can create reusable templates from the Library:

* **Copy to my templates** creates a personal template, for your own projects.
* **Copy to workspace templates** creates a template shared with everyone in the workspace.

Templates have drafts and immutable versions, like a project's architecture. Click **Create next template version** to change one. Click **Archive** to retire one you no longer use. Projects already using it keep their copy.


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