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ardalis (Steve Smith)

@ardalis.com
3.5K followers 780 following 2.8K posts

Software Architect and Force Multiplier of dev teams. Husband. Dad to 4 kids: 3 ADHD sons, 2 twins, 1 daughter. 💡NimblePros.com 🔥devBetter.com 🎥YouTube.com/ardalis Pluralsight | Dometrain author Microsoft Dev MVP 💥Combat Engineer veteran

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 9h
Check out the rest of the agenda and speaker lineup!
Techorama Speakers page 1TechoramaNL Speakers page 2TechoramaNL Speakers page 3
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 9h
And just because it's kind of required these days, I do have one talk involving AI: Designing Software for Agentic Development. This one is definitely a moving target as things are changing rapidly. I expect to be updating things right up until the talk starts. Which is TOTALLY out of character 🤣
Techorama
I'm speaking
Designing Software for Agentic Development
28 Oct 2026
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 9h
My other talks are on... Antipatterns and Worst Practices! Always fun to talk about things that didn't work out and what NOT to do.
Techorama
I'm speaking at Techorama 2026 Netherlands
Antipatterns, Smells, and Worst Practices
27 Oct 2026
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 9h
Who wants to come to the Netherlands next month? Check out TechoramaNL! I'll be giving a full day software architecture workshop and presenting, along with a ton of amazing speakers!
Techorama
I'm speaking at Techorama 2026 Netherlands
Software Architecture Fundamentals
26-28 Oct 2026 Utrecht, The Netherlands
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 29/09/2026
Checking out the ISC2 meeting tonight at TrustedSec in Fairlawn
Trusted Sec meeting of ISC2 Cleveland
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 20/09/2026
Ready for #Rush in Cleveland
Rush stage
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 19/08/2026
This is where the Circuit Breaker pattern is useful, to avoid retry-flooding when a service that was down attempts to come back online. GitHub performed a manual circuit break to resolve the issue. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/...
The retry storm in Northern VA was fixed by 1) temporarily reducing gateway retry logic with a PR and 2) blocking inbound Copilot Token Service token requests at the load balancers with a 403, and then gradually ramping back up traffic per-site to allow callers to succeed. Residual Copilot authentication failures continued because client retry behavior amplified load: a failed token operation could generate many extra requests and enter a retry loop. Copilot Token Service traffic increased from a normal 7–9K RPS to 70–100K RPS. Reducing gateway authentication retries and blocking retry-triggering responses stabilized Copilot Token Service and completed recovery.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 17/08/2026
Also sharing this in case anybody wants to steal it for future use... #claude #ai imgflip.com/i/az131v
Kirk screams CLAUDE!!!! (instead of Khan)
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 17/08/2026
Incident with GitHub.com

Subscribe

Update - We are experiencing high error rates around 20% for web experiences and api traffic. Archive downloads and raw
repository content downloads are experiencing an approximate 50% error rate. Investigations are on-going into the root cause, and
updates will continue to be provided as we investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 14:04 UTC

Update - Pull Requests is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:58 UTC

Update - Issues is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:46 UTC

Update - We are seeing an approximate 20% error rate across numerous experiences including Pull Requests, Issues, and others.
Investigations are currently under way and we will be posting updates as they become available
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:45 UTC

Update - Webhooks is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:44 UTC

Update - Actions is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:42 UTC

Update - API Requests is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:41 UTC

Investigating - We are investigating reports of impacted performance for some GitHub services.
Aug 17, 2026 - 13:40 UTC
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 17/08/2026
Let's go @github.com ... #github
Kirk screams GITHUB!!!! (instead of Khan)
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 13/08/2026
Newspaper clipping in The Simpsons:
Old Man Yells at Claude
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 28/07/2026
Anyone else notice that #claude code chews up CPU while its idle in #vscode? The chat is inactive, it's finished its work or it's waiting for a response to a question, but the CPU is spinning madly and fans are running to cool it.
Windows Resource Monitor showing CPU tab and a couple of Claude Code processes with 39 threads each and constant CPU usage
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/07/2026
Typically we expect behavior to live in the implementation, not the interface, so a change to the default behavior of the method seems like it would override the interface. But the default is *part of* the contract. So the interface wins if that's how the method is invoked. Such as via typical DI.
public interface IService 
{
  public List<Item> Items { get; }
  public void AddItem(String name, int quantity = 2);
}

public record Item(String Name, int Quantity);

public class SomeService : IService
{
  public List<Item> Items { get; } = [];

  public void AddItem(String name, int quantity = 1)
  {
    Items.Add(new Item(name, quantity));
  }
}
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/06/2026
Aww, they built Donnie a play mat for his birthday. How precious!
Baby Glow and Grow mat with two arches and hanging toys
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 13/06/2026
Thursday night’s #Metallica #Budapest poster art was excellent.
Mark Laszlo:

I did the official poster for Metallica's show tonight in Budapest. 

(The scene depicts a Kaiju-sized Szent István, as he's shredding over the ruins of the postapocalyptic city, with the "Szent Jobb" (his sacred mummified Right Hand - a real thing, look it up) reattached to his body after thousands of years.)
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 02/06/2026
You’d like this then… Sicily, Italy
Sicily from the eastSicily from the east;
Another ship in foreground;
Ship railing visible just in front of photog
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 23/05/2026
Bruce Springsteen with Tom Morello was great - see them if you can.
Bruce Springsteen concertBruce Springsteen concertBruce Springsteen concert
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/05/2026
Oof this is bad. #ai
From GithubCopilot community on Reddit

April usage summary compared to usage-based billing (coming soon):
Current bill: $39
Usage-based bill: $5,851.77

Some other numbers and graphs but that's it, that's the story.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/05/2026
A cat
Caption: I wake up -> there's a new supply chain attack --> in a circle back to start.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/05/2026
Hey! Try out the new Agents App! Also: The Agents App is deprecated!
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 30/04/2026
Claude is continuing to struggle with uptime... status.claude.com #ai #claude
Claude Status Page - showing Major Outage for all services.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 29/04/2026
This week GitHub Copilot pricing changes were announced, continuing the trend of price increases across all AI products that I anticipated in my recent article about AI Benefits and Costs. I've already had to amend the article 5 times this month to note increases... ardalis.com/ai-benefits-... #AI
What's changing on June 1 for Copilot Billing

Premium request units, or PRUs, will be replaced by GitHub AI Credits which are a monthly allotment of credits consumed based on token consumption (input, output, and cached tokens) according to the listed API rates per model. This change aligns Copilot pricing with actual usage and is an important step toward a sustainable, reliable Copilot business and experience for all users.
Copilot code review’s agentic architecture runs on GitHub Actions. Copilot code review will now consume GitHub Actions minutes, in addition to GitHub AI Credits. These minutes are billed at the same per-minute rates as other GitHub Actions workflows.
Fallback experiences will no longer be available. Under the new model, usage will instead be governed by available credits.
What's changing on June 1 for Copilot Annual Plans

GitHub is retiring Copilot annual plans. As a current annual subscriber your Copilot Pro or Pro+ plan will continue as-is with premium request-based pricing. When your annual plan ends, your account will automatically transition to Copilot Free, which you can continue using at no cost.
The experience on annual plans will change significantly: model multipliers will increase, and standard-tier models (currently 0x) will no longer be available, reflecting increased compute costs and the transition to usage-based billing, and no new models or features will be added to annual plans going forward.
To keep getting new models and features, we recommend switching to a Copilot Pro or Pro+ monthly plan with the new usage-based billing system starting June 1. If you switch before your annual subscription expires, you'll receive prorated credits for the remaining value of your annual plan.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 17/04/2026
Save $76 and have indefinite access to the courses - no subscription necessary! This is I think the best deal Dometrain runs outside of Black Friday.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/04/2026
These are spectacular. I wonder what the EXIF for location says on the photos... 🤔 www.nasa.gov/gallery/luna... #nasa #moon #artemisii
The moon, bottom left, with the earth mostly in night-time shadow to the right.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 26/03/2026
Upcoming flight meal choice, I misread at first as "Karma"... Really don't want to risk later digestive issues and think "I guess it was just karma..."
Vegetable Korma
rice, carrots, bell peppers, green beans
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 26/03/2026
Hey friends, if you want to see a great line-up of speakers one day only in Columbus, Ohio in a few weeks, I have a special deal for you: Stir Trek 2025 (stirtrek.com) Code: SPEAKERFRIENDS_2026 Price: $199 per ticket ($255 otherwise) Registration: events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-20...
 Code: SPEAKERFRIENDS_2026
  Price: $199 per ticket
  Registration: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 26/03/2026
Oberlin University Luddites take to their typewriter:
Oberlin Iuddites Reject "Year of AI Exploration" (bsky wouldn’t let me put in longer text)
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/03/2026
Who could have predicted the Strait of Hormuz would be a problem if war erupted with Iran?
Bike Meme
Pane 1: Trump: Israel says I should bomb Iran
Pane 2: (Strait of Hormuz blockaded - global energy emergency looms)
Pane 3: Curse you Joe Biden!
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 09/03/2026
This one, 13.1.2:
4 C: \dev

12:45
13.1.2+895a2f0b09d747a052aaaf0273d55ad0e2dc95b0
4 C: \dev
Description:
Create a new Aspire project.

Usage:
aspire new [command] [options]

Options:
-n, -- name <name>
-0, -- output <output>
-s, -- source <source>
-v, -- version <version>
-- channel <channel>
-? , -h, -- help
-d, -- debug
-- non-interactive
-- wait-for-debugger

Commands :
aspire-starter
aspire-ts-cs-starter
aspire-py-starter
aspire-apphost-singlefile

12:45

aspire -version

aspire new -- help

The name of the project to create.
The output path for the project.
The NuGet source to use for the project templates.
The version of the project templates to use.
Channel to use for templates (stable, daily)
Show help and usage information
Enable debug logging to the console.
Run the command in non-interactive mode, disabling all interactive prompts and spinners
Wait for a debugger to attach before executing the command.

Starter App (ASP.NET Core/Blazor)
Starter App (ASP.NET Core/React)
Starter App (FastAPI/React)
Empty AppHost
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/03/2026
Oh look what I just got today... #ai #chatgpt
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/03/2026
Called it - just got this today:
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 28/02/2026
I developed a tool that will generate these diagrams for any dotnet app that's using a modular monolith style of architecture.
A module dependency diagram for RiverBooks
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 18/02/2026
Two people in bed

I BET HE'S
THINKING ABOUT
CONTINVOUCLY MORGING

I COULD BE CONTINVOUCLY
MORGING RN
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 15/02/2026
Of course they will! It’s just about the only ew training data that exists outside of private corporate data. And also: ardalis.com/llms-need-ma...
A New Source of Data
As the image above shows, some of the reason for Stack Overflow's drop in popularity may be attributed to shifts to other communities. I have
no doubt that Al companies are already working with these communities, either directly or surrepticiously. But the other obvious source of data to mine is the Al companies' own users' conversations with the companies' existing models. There is a LOT of data there, with OpenAl's ChatGPT claiming 2.5B requests/day from 330M US-based users in July 2025, and more recently claiming over 800M weekly active users in Feb 2026. These stored
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 14/02/2026
IYKYK
I DON'T ALWAYS CH CH CH CH
(JASON HOCKEY MASK)
BUT WHEN I DO, I AH AH AH AH
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 09/02/2026
Their error links to their X account which hasn't had a post in years - they should probably update that to their BlueSky at this point, right @github.com ? Anyway, they seem to be aware of the issue per githubstatus.com:
Incident with Pull RequestsSubscribe
Update - Actions is experiencing degraded performance. We are continuing to investigate.
Feb 09, 2026 - 16:22 UTC
Update - We are seeing intermittent errors on many pages and API requests and are investigating.
Feb 09, 2026 - 16:21 UTC
Update - Issues is experiencing degraded availability. We are continuing to investigate.
Feb 09, 2026 - 16:20 UTC
Investigating - We are investigating reports of degraded performance for Pull Requests
Feb 09, 2026 - 16:19 UTC
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 09/02/2026
@github.com is struggling today... must be a super bowl hangover...
An angry pink unicorn image over error text reading
No server is currently available to service your request. Sorry about that. Please try refreshing and contact us if the problem persists
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 27/01/2026
How is artificial intelligence and the rise of #AI going to affect our satisfaction in our roles? I thought this was an interesting way of framing it from my devBetter coaching group: What do you think? If you're an engineer, do you get satisfaction from crafting or delivering, or both?
Sure, but that's different. It's like the replicator in Star Trek. If you're a busy parent, and you'd love to find the time to cook your famous "insert tasty traditional family recipe that takes hours to make" but you never ever do because you just don't have the time, it's kind of awesome to have a replicator and be able to just go "make me a... describe recipe" and boom, you've got yourself a tasty meal.

But if you're a restaurant chef and cooking is your passion and now the restaurant owners decides to fire all the cooks and sous-chefs, buys a fancy replicator and tells you that from now on your job is to be an intermediary between the wait staff and the replicator, that sucks. When you complain and ask why he just doesn't get the wait staff to pass the orders to the replicator themselves, he says "Oh no, we need a chef to do that, someone who knows ingredients, because the replicator is not perfect and if you just say 'give me a cheeseburger', you might not get what you want, sometimes it's better to say 'give me a cheeseburger' with two beef patties, medium rare, with aioli and toasted bun' and we feel like a chef would be slightly better at doing that than a waiter or the customer himself". How much comfort would that be? Would you still feel like a restaurant chef? Would you still have the same joy, pride and satisfaction in your work?
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 26/01/2026
"The wicked become even worse when they are
tolerated."
-Leo Tolstoy
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 25/01/2026
ARBEIT MACHI FRET
"THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO DACHAU WAS NOT BETTER TRAINING FOR THE GUARDS."
-HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 22/01/2026
A busy day on dometrain.com for my students: #dotnet
4 messages showing 4 5-star reviews on 22 Jan 2026 for 
Getting Started: Modular Monoliths in .NET
and
Getting Started: ASP.NET Core
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 22/01/2026
There really is a lost art in making poetic, fortune-cookie like error messages... #VisualStudio #VSIX #dev
Error Alert Dialog

VSIX Installer

The given stream must have the ability to seek.

[OK]
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 20/01/2026
LOL, @fitbit.bsky.social sends me an email with a link to view my friends leaderboard, clicking it sends me through a bunch of hoops including a windowsphone.com domain before winding up on a random microsoft error page.
A microsoft error page open in chrome with dev tools showing a network trace that includes 301 redirects from fitbit to a windowsphone.com page ultimately to the microsoft "smart" error.html page.
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 19/01/2026
It’s hard to parse “0.00001%” so let me point out that is 1 in 10 million. Our population is roughly 350 million. 350M / 10M = 35 35 individuals now control 12% (and climbing) of national income. Tell me my math is wrong. This is insane.
Calculator app showing 
350,000,000x0.00001%
= 35
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 09/12/2025
And here's mine. I think it's a bit weird these aren't a January thing but hey blame Spotify I guess...
git-wrapped.com
@ardalis
2025 Year in Code (not counting the end of December...)
Universal Rank: Top 1%
Longest Streak: 33 days
Total Commits: 2,529
Most Active Month: December
Most Active Day: Tuesday
Total Stars: 92,848
Top Language: C#
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/12/2025
My initial joy is shattered by the pop-up that shows up and says it won’t work, contact Microsoft support. (note I’m leaving out a whole side quest in which I sign in using GitHub)
Choose a way to sign in
Approve a request using my
Microsoft app
Use my password
Sign in with GitHub
Back

I tried GitHub; auth succeeded but the operation still failed
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 07/12/2025
Then it wants to verify me with the Authenticator app for MFA. No worries. It gives a 2-digit number. The Auth app pings me that an Auth request is pending. Brilliant, this might just work, I think. I switch apps, enter digits, look at camera which Face Ids me (twice). I switch back.
18:39
86.88
119.61
50.80 g
93.81
= 93
TIME SENSITIVE
now
New sign-in request for your...
Microsoft
<steve@kentsmiths.com
Check your Authenticator app
50 in your Microsoft app on your mobile
device, select the number shown to sign in.
41
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 21/11/2025
Seems Atlassian is having trouble this morning (despite status page being all green): #atlassian #jira #trello
ATLASSIAN

3

!

Something went wrong while executing your request.
We're working on it, please try again shortly.

6a540571-80a0-429c-a4cb-11c57e8f8d95
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 18/11/2025
C'mon c'mon c'mon @github.com we're rooting for ya! www.githubstatus.com
Git operation failures

Update - We are currently investigating failures on all Git operations, including both SSH and HTTP.
Nov 18, 2025 - 21:11 UTC

Update - We are seeing failures for some git http operations and are investigating
Nov 18, 2025 - 20:52 UTC

Update - Git Operations is experiencing degraded availability. We are continuing to investigate.
Nov 18, 2025 - 20:39 UTC

Investigating - We are currently investigating this issue.
Nov 18, 2025 - 20:39 UTC

Subscribe

?

Current Status: GitHub.com

Git Operations
Incident

-.

Webhooks ?

Normal

API Requests
Normal

?

Issues

Normal

?
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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 15/11/2025
Clean Architecture on one slide:
Screenshot of my dotnetconf talk on clean architecture showing how the application is organized
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