# Athena Architecture Docs
This folder documents Athena architecture in depth, from request routing to runtime operations.
## Audience
- New contributors onboarding to the Rust core
- Engineers building new gateway features
- Operators running Athena in shared environments
- Reviewers validating architectural boundaries
## Reading Order
1. architecture_overview.md
2. architecture_layered_core.md
3. architecture_gateway_routing.md
4. architecture_client_registry_and_pooling.md
5. architecture_cache_and_invalidation.md
6. architecture_deferred_and_admission.md
7. architecture_observability_and_audit.md
8. architecture_deployment_and_runtime.md
## Architecture Files
- architecture_unified_all.md
- architecture_overview.md
- architecture_layered_core.md
- architecture_gateway_routing.md
- architecture_client_registry_and_pooling.md
- architecture_cache_and_invalidation.md
- architecture_pipeline_etl.md
- architecture_deferred_and_admission.md
- architecture_auth_and_tenant_context.md
- architecture_observability_and_audit.md
- architecture_websocket_and_cdc.md
- architecture_frontend_and_tools.md
- architecture_deployment_and_runtime.md
## Design Priorities Across Athena
- One API surface across multiple backends
- Strong request envelope consistency
- Clear tenant and client context boundaries
- Performance through pooling and caching
- Reliability through explicit fallback and tracing
## Mermaid Rule Applied
All Mermaid diagrams intentionally avoid bracket style node syntax.