Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Strangler pattern
Replacing a legacy system incrementally by growing the new capability around it and routing traffic away piece by piece until the old system can be retired. It is the standing alternative to the big-bang rewrite.
Where the standard develops it
- TJ-1Evaluating architectural decisions and their organisational consequencesTrade-offs, reversibility, and who has to coordinate because of this.
- TJ-2Technical debtRecognising, quantifying, and scheduling repayment.
Related terms
- Architecture review forum
- A standing forum where significant designs get cross-team scrutiny early.
- Bus factor
- The number of people who could leave before critical knowledge or capability is lost.
- Decision process
- The usual way a manager of managers intervenes in a cross-team technical decision.
- Inverse Conway manoeuvre
- Designing the organisation to produce the architecture you want, on the basis that the system will mirror the organisation's structure either way.
- Mirroring hypothesis
- The empirically tested form of Conway's observation.
- One-way door
- A decision that is hard to reverse and so deserves deliberation and senior involvement.
- Technical debt
- The implied cost of future rework from choosing expedience now.
- Technical-debt quadrant
- Debt classified as deliberate or inadvertent, and as prudent or reckless.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Strangler pattern. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.strangler-pattern). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/strangler-pattern