cordsbased

Cordsbased is a design term used in software engineering and hardware design to describe architectures built from modular components linked by explicit interfaces. The term uses the metaphor of cords to convey how units are connected and can be recombined, swapped, or extended without altering the rest of the system.

Core ideas include loose coupling, clear contracts, and dynamic wiring. Cordsbased systems prefer small, independently deployable units and a wiring mechanism—such as configuration files, registries, or dependency injection—that determines how components connect at build time or run time. This enables reuse and scalable composition.

Applications include plugin ecosystems, modular software platforms, data processing pipelines, and node-based editors where data flows through a sequence of connected components. The concept is closely related to flow-based programming and modular design, though it's typically used informally as a metaphor rather than a standardized methodology.

Critics note potential complexity from wiring many components, performance overhead, and difficulties in maintaining a consistent interface across updates. Effective cordsbased designs rely on strong interface definitions, versioning strategies, and robust tooling to manage dependencies and configuration.

See also modular design, plug-in architecture, dependency injection, flow-based programming.