Discovery follows real work rather than a feature wish list. We trace representative transactions from initiation through approval, settlement, reporting and exception handling. Domain events, actors, evidence, timing constraints and reconciliation points become a shared model. The team records assumptions and unresolved policy questions so that ambiguous requirements do not silently become code.
Architecture is organised around business capabilities and ownership. A modular monolith is often the safest starting point when a domain is evolving; separately deployable services are used where isolation, independent scaling or organisational ownership justifies the operational cost. Interfaces use explicit contracts, idempotency keys and versioning. Asynchronous work is represented by durable events or jobs rather than hidden background callbacks.
Quality is designed into the delivery path. Unit tests protect domain rules, contract tests protect integrations, and scenario tests cover user journeys and permissions. Database changes are forward-compatible, telemetry is added with the feature, and deployment rehearsals include rollback and recovery. Sensitive actions produce append-only audit events containing actor, authority, time, reason and affected record identifiers.