Atlas · Architecture
One model. One map.
Atlas is built on two ideas. The model is what Atlas knows about your business: twelve kinds of things, such as capabilities, applications and contracts, and how they connect. The map is where you find them: a leadership layer for the questions management asks, over six domains where the detail lives.
01The model
Twelve kinds of things. Nothing else to learn.
The model uses the same twelve record types as LeanIX, the most widely used tool in the field, so an architect recognises them at once. Everyone else only needs the short meaning next to each one. The names are in English, as they are in Atlas.
Strategy
Objective
What the business wants to achieve. For example, growing direct sales.
Initiative
A planned change that gets you there. For example, merging two CRM systems into one.
Business
Business Capability
Something the business must be able to do, whoever or whatever does it. For example, managing customer relationships.
Process
How the work is actually done, step by step. For example, from order to payment.
Organization
Who owns, builds and uses things: teams, departments and business units.
Portfolio
Application
A system people use in their work. For example, your CRM or your ERP.
Interface
A connection that moves data between two applications.
Technology
What an application runs on, such as a database or a cloud service. LeanIX calls it an IT component.
Tech Category
The group a technology belongs to, such as databases or cloud platforms.
Provider
The vendor behind an application or a technology.
Contract
The dated agreement with a provider: what it covers and when it ends.
Data
Data Object
A set of business data, such as customers, orders or employees, and which applications create or read it.
02How it connects
One thread from goal to contract.
The twelve are not twelve separate lists. They are connected, which is what lets Atlas answer a question such as which contracts a strategic goal depends on.
An objective
is realised by business capabilities and delivered by initiatives.
A capability
is carried out through processes and supported by applications.
An application
uses data objects, talks to other applications through interfaces and runs on technology.
A technology
belongs to a tech category and comes from a provider.
A provider
is party to contracts, and each contract states which applications and technologies it covers.
03The map
A leadership layer over six domains.
The map is how Atlas is organised. Management starts at the top and gets answers without learning the model. Architects work in the domains underneath, where the twelve types live.
The leadership layer
Brief
The start page: what changed, what is waiting for a decision, and what Atlas did this week.
Ask Atlas
Ask a question in plain language and get an answer with its sources.
Verify
Where people confirm or correct what the agents propose, before it enters the model.
Value
What the portfolio costs, and what it delivers against the strategy.
Risk & Compliance
Risks, mitigations and regulatory obligations in one place.
The six domains
Strategy
Goals, how well the portfolio supports them, and the roadmap.
In the model: Objective, Initiative
Business
What the business does, how it does it, and who is responsible.
In the model: Business Capability, Process, Organization
Portfolio
The systems, the technology under them, the vendors and the contracts.
In the model: Application, Interface, Technology, Tech Category, Provider, Contract
Data
Which data the business holds and how it flows between systems.
In the model: Data Object
AI & Agents
Which AI systems and agents are in use, who owns them, and how they are governed.
In the model: Linked to the applications and data above
Governance
The decisions that have been made and the standards everyone builds to.
In the model: Decisions and standards, recorded against the same model
Reports and sharing, and settings, sit beside the map rather than in it.
04Model and map together
Two views of the same thing.
Every domain on the map is a view of the same model. Each record is stored once, and every domain that shows it reads that same record. Nothing is copied between screens, so nothing drifts apart.
Inside Atlas, the Atlas Map draws the same structure, so an architect can see which domain every page belongs to.
The model is what Atlas knows. The map is where you find it.
See the model with your own portfolio.
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