Stateful Design
Stateful design is a software architecture approach where components or systems maintain persistent state information across interactions, enabling them to remember past events and adapt behavior accordingly. This contrasts with stateless design, where each request is handled independently without retained context. It is fundamental in applications requiring user sessions, data persistence, or complex workflows.
Developers should use stateful design when building applications that need to track user sessions, manage multi-step processes, or maintain real-time data consistency, such as e-commerce platforms, banking systems, or collaborative tools. It is essential for scenarios where context preservation improves user experience or operational efficiency, though it requires careful management of state synchronization and scalability challenges.