---
id: "prereq-microservices-architecture"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["00:00:57", "00:01:10"]
tags: ["architecture"]
related: ["concept-agent-infrastructure-shift"]
reason: "Understanding how monolithic apps were decomposed into API-driven microservices is necessary to grasp the analogy of how current software is decomposing into agentic primitives."
sources: ["s52-orchestration-layer"]
sourceVaultSlug: "s52-orchestration-layer"
originDay: 52
---
# Prerequisite: Microservices Architecture

## Prerequisite
Familiarity with how monolithic applications were decomposed into API-driven microservices roughly 2012–2016.

## Why it's required
[[concept-agent-infrastructure-shift]] frames the agent transition as the third generational shift after on-prem→cloud and monolith→microservices. Without an intuitive grasp of how microservices solved the scaling and team-coupling problems of monoliths — and what their cost (sprawl, observability gaps) was — the analogy that motivates [[concept-agent-sprawl]] and the urgency of [[concept-layer-6-orchestration]] doesn't land.

## What to brush up on if needed
- Service decomposition patterns and bounded contexts.
- Inter-service communication (REST, gRPC, message queues).
- The 2018-era microservices sprawl crisis and the rise of service meshes (Istio, Linkerd) as a partial fix.