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Abstract Base Cloud
The ABC Pattern is a universal architectural model for structuring cloud infrastructure in a way that is predictable, explicit, and safe for automated reasoning. It defines a small set of composable building blocks and a strict set of rules governing how those blocks relate, communicate, and evolve. The result is an architecture that is easy to understand, easy to validate, and easy to generate or transform using both human and machine agents.
ABC is intentionally tool‑agnostic and cloud‑agnostic. It does not prescribe specific services, resource types, or implementation languages. Instead, it defines a semantic architecture model that can be mapped onto any infrastructure-as-code system, including imperative tools (such as CDK) and declarative tools (such as Terraform).
At its core, ABC is built on three foundational ideas:
1. A strict hierarchical structure Every ABC architecture is composed of three construct types:
- ApplicationStack — the root of the system
- Logical Units — functional domains
- Resource Groups — cohesive clusters of cloud resources
This hierarchy forms a strict tree with no lateral references, ensuring clarity and isolation.
2. Explicit contracts and deterministic data flow
Every construct defines:
- an Input Contract (what it needs)
- an Output Contract (what it produces)
Data flows only in two directions:
- Capturing Down — parents pass data to children
- Bubbling Up — children return data to parents
This eliminates hidden dependencies and makes the architecture fully analyzable.
3. A stable foundation for automation
Because ABC is explicit, typed, and deterministic, it is uniquely suited for:
- automated code generation
- architecture validation
- refactoring and transformation
- multi‑cloud portability
- agent‑driven reasoning
ABC is designed to be the intermediate representation (IR) for infrastructure, something like the “AST of cloud architecture”.
Purpose and Philosophy
The ABC Pattern exists to solve a fundamental problem in cloud architecture: infrastructure is too implicit.
- Dependencies are hidden.
- Data flow is unclear.
- Modules are entangled.
- Refactoring is risky.
- Automation is fragile.
ABC replaces this with a model that is:
- explicit,
- typed,
- hierarchical,
- deterministic,
- verifiable, and
- portable
It is designed to be understood by humans, validated by tools, and generated by agents.