System Design Canvases
Printable practice resource: System Design Canvases.
Communication and reflection
ready
How to use this resource
Use the canvas before each 45-minute system design mock. Fill it in from left to right, then use the last five minutes to state risks and next steps.
Resource
| Area | Notes |
|---|---|
| Users and goals | Who uses the system, and what outcome matters? |
| Core flows | What are the main read and write paths? |
| APIs and data | What entities, APIs, and ownership boundaries matter? |
| Scale and constraints | What changes the architecture: latency, throughput, fan-out, correctness, privacy, cost? |
| Architecture | What is the simplest design that satisfies the important constraints? |
| Failure and operations | What breaks, how do we observe it, and how do we recover? |
| Trade-offs | What alternative did you reject, and why? |
| Evolution | What changes in version two, migration, or higher scale? |