Integration Patterns Reference

Intent, fit, trade-offs, and relationships for messaging and application integration.

Updated 2026-07-22

Message Channel

Connect applications through a logical path that carries messages.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Senders and receivers should communicate asynchronously without direct location coupling.
Trade-offs	Delivery, ordering, retention, and ownership must be defined.
Related	Message Endpoint, Pipes and Filters

Point-to-Point Channel

Deliver each message to one eligible consumer.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Work should be distributed without duplicating each task.
Trade-offs	Consumers compete and processing order may differ from send order.
Related	Competing Consumers, Publish-Subscribe Channel

Publish-Subscribe Channel

Deliver each publication to every interested subscriber.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Independent consumers react to the same event.
Trade-offs	Slow, unavailable, and late subscribers need explicit retention semantics.
Related	Point-to-Point Channel, Event-Driven Consumer

Dead Letter Channel

Store messages that cannot be delivered or processed for diagnosis and recovery.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Failures must not block a channel or disappear silently.
Trade-offs	Without alerting, retention, and replay procedures it becomes a message graveyard.
Related	Retry, Invalid Message Channel

Message Envelope

Wrap a business payload with transport and processing metadata.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Routing, versioning, identity, or tracing must travel with a payload.
Trade-offs	Envelope ownership and version compatibility must be standardized.
Related	Correlation Identifier, Message Translator

Correlation Identifier

Identify messages that belong to the same request or conversation.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Replies, fragments, or events must be matched across asynchronous boundaries.
Trade-offs	Every participant must preserve the identifier and choose its lifecycle.
Related	Aggregator, Request-Reply

Content-Based Router

Select a destination by evaluating message data.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Different message kinds or values require different processing paths.
Trade-offs	Central routing rules can become coupled to every message schema.
Related	Message Filter, Recipient List

Message Filter

Remove messages that do not satisfy a predicate.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	A downstream channel should receive only relevant messages.
Trade-offs	Discard behavior must be observable when filtered data matters.
Related	Content-Based Router, Invalid Message Channel

Recipient List

Send one message to a dynamically computed set of recipients.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Destinations depend on message content or runtime configuration.
Trade-offs	Partial delivery, duplicate effects, and result collection require policy.
Related	Publish-Subscribe Channel, Aggregator

Splitter

Divide a compound message into independently processable messages.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Parts can be processed, routed, or retried separately.
Trade-offs	Sequence, correlation, and completion metadata must survive the split.
Related	Aggregator, Resequencer

Aggregator

Combine a related set of messages into one result.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Fragments or parallel results must be reassembled.
Trade-offs	Completeness, timeouts, duplicates, ordering, and persistent state are difficult.
Related	Splitter, Correlation Identifier

Resequencer

Buffer related messages and release them in a defined order.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Transport or parallel processing can reorder messages whose sequence matters.
Trade-offs	Missing messages force timeout and memory decisions.
Related	Aggregator, Splitter

Routing Slip

Attach a dynamic list of processing destinations to a message.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Each message may need a different sequence of steps.
Trade-offs	Itineraries expose topology and make centralized policy harder.
Related	Process Manager, Pipes and Filters

Message Translator

Convert a message from one data format or vocabulary into another.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Connected systems use incompatible contracts.
Trade-offs	Semantic loss and version combinations accumulate at boundaries.
Related	Canonical Data Model, Adapter

Canonical Data Model

Use one shared integration vocabulary between application-specific translators.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Many applications would otherwise require pairwise transformations.
Trade-offs	The canonical model can become huge, political, and slow to evolve.
Related	Message Translator, Anti-corruption Layer

Content Enricher

Add missing information to a message from another source.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	A downstream step requires data the sender should not provide.
Trade-offs	Enrichment adds latency and introduces dependency failure and staleness.
Related	Content Filter, Claim Check

Claim Check

Store a large or sensitive payload and pass a reference through the channel.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Transport limits, repeated routing, or security favor an external payload store.
Trade-offs	Claims expire, stores fail, and cleanup must align with message lifetime.
Related	Content Enricher, Message Store

Polling Consumer

Let a receiver request messages when it is ready.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	The consumer controls pace or integrates with a synchronous loop.
Trade-offs	Polling interval trades latency against empty requests.
Related	Event-Driven Consumer, Competing Consumers

Event-Driven Consumer

Invoke message handling when a message arrives.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Low latency and push-style APIs are preferred.
Trade-offs	Concurrency and backpressure move into callbacks or the runtime.
Related	Polling Consumer, Publish-Subscribe Channel

Competing Consumers

Attach multiple workers to one point-to-point channel.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Message processing needs horizontal scale and failover.
Trade-offs	Ordering, shared resources, and uneven work complicate scaling.
Related	Point-to-Point Channel, Idempotent Receiver

Idempotent Receiver

Process duplicate messages without producing duplicate logical effects.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	At-least-once delivery or retries are possible.
Trade-offs	Message identity and deduplication retention require durable state.
Related	Competing Consumers, Dead Letter Channel

Pipes and Filters

Compose independent transformations as filters connected by channels.

Aspect	Guidance
Use when	Processing can be decomposed into reusable, reorderable stages.
Trade-offs	Serialization, observability, and end-to-end error handling span many stages.
Related	Routing Slip, Message Channel