Vertical Slice Architecture Doesn't Mean “Share Nothing”
•March 6, 2026
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Why It Matters
By limiting sharing to infrastructure and invariant aggregates, teams can evolve individual use cases without risking unintended side effects, accelerating delivery and reducing technical debt.
Key Takeaways
- •Vertical slices share infrastructure, not business logic, to avoid coupling.
- •Each slice owns its data and state transitions within workflow.
- •Shared aggregates act as consistency boundaries across related use cases.
- •Bad sharing creates god objects and unexpected cross‑slice changes.
- •Logical, not physical, boundaries define slices across different deployment contexts.
Summary
Dererick Martin clarifies a common misconception about vertical‑slice architecture: it does not mandate absolute code isolation, but rather the selective sharing of appropriate concerns.
He distinguishes between technical plumbing—error handling, logging, outbox/event‑bus utilities—and domain data, which each slice owns. The slice controls its persistence, state transitions, and can choose its own tactical approach, while still participating in a shared workflow such as a shipment lifecycle.
Using a shipment example, Martin shows how dispatch, arrival, loading, etc., each represent a slice that updates its own column or raises its own event, yet all slices rely on a common aggregate that guarantees consistency. He warns against “god objects” that couple unrelated features like compliance or customer tracking to the shipment model.
The lesson for architects is to treat slices as logical boundaries, share only infrastructure and invariant aggregates, and avoid cross‑slice coupling that can lead to brittle systems. Properly scoped sharing improves maintainability and aligns code with business use cases.
Original Description
Vertical Slice Architecture (VSA) always triggers the same question: how do you share code between slices? Some people assume VSA means “share nothing.” Others create a giant shared model and accidentally reintroduce coupling.
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0:00 Intro
2:32 Sharing
3:50 Data
8:00 Logical vs Physical
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