These house meanings are used for interpreting event charts related to software, cloud infrastructure, CDNs, security systems, and distributed platforms. They are derived from observed patterns across real-world incidents including CrowdStrike, AWS, and multiple Cloudflare outages.
1st House — Entry Layer & Failure Mode
Client-visible behavior and how failure manifests.
- Error pages and response codes
- Fail-open vs fail-closed behavior
- Whether the system panics or degrades gracefully
2nd House — Limits, Buffers, and Safety Margins
System tolerances and guarded boundaries.
- Memory, file size, and feature limits
- Parsing buffers and request body size
- Capacity assumptions and safety thresholds
3rd House — Logic Flow & Execution Paths
Internal interpretation and code-by-code decision flow.
- Conditional execution logic
- Assumed continuity between code paths
- Metadata interpretation and internal queries
4th House — Foundational Architecture
The structural base the entire system depends on.
- Kernels and operating systems
- Core proxy engines and base services
- Lowest-level architectural assumptions
5th House — Derived Results & Decision Outputs
What the system produces after evaluation.
- WAF allow/deny decisions
- Bot scores and classifications
- Rule evaluation and execution results
6th House — Automation & Deployment Discipline
Routine work and how changes are rolled out.
- Scheduled jobs and background processes
- Deployment systems and rollout methods
- Health checks, observability, and automation
7th House — Threat Modeling & External Attribution
How external behavior is interpreted.
- Attack detection vs false attribution
- DDoS suspicion and threat modeling
- Security narratives masking internal faults
8th House — Shared Dependencies & Cascades
Hidden coupling beneath the surface.
- Shared databases and clustered systems
- Dependency chains and cross-service coupling
- Cascading or compounding failures
9th House — Global Governance & Policy Layer
Rules that apply everywhere at once.
- Global configuration systems
- Security and enforcement policies
- Authority over network-wide behavior
10th House — Public Visibility & Volatility
How the outage appears externally.
- Status pages and public communication
- Duration, flapping, and instability
- Visibility versus actual technical severity
11th House — Distributed Fleets & Segmentation
Large-scale systems and how they subdivide.
- Microservices and distributed clusters
- Partial-fleet failures
- Topology- or configuration-based impact
12th House — Latent Code & Dormant Bugs
Unseen conditions waiting to be triggered.
- Legacy code paths
- Untested edge cases
- Bugs that exist for years before activating
