How We Approach Every Bubble Project: Our Architecture Process
Before a single element is placed, we understand your business model, your user roles, your data relationships, and your growth ambitions. Eight phases, six non-negotiable principles, and a handover document a new developer can understand in one day.
The Eight Phases of a Bubble Architecture Engagement
Every project we take on at Simple Automation Solutions begins with architecture, not Bubble. Before a single element is placed, we understand your business model, your user roles, your data relationships, and your growth ambitions. This sequence is not bureaucracy — it is the discipline that separates systems that scale from systems that break.
From Discovery to Handover
| Phase | Duration | Deliverable | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Discovery | 1-2 days | Business requirements document, user story map | Understanding what you need before designing how to build it |
| 2. Data Architecture | 1-2 days | Complete data model on paper: every type, field, relationship, and privacy rule | The foundation every other decision builds on |
| 3. User Role Matrix | Half day | Permission matrix: every role × every action × every data type | Defines security boundaries before any code |
| 4. Workflow Mapping | 1 day | Top 20 workflows mapped: trigger, steps, conditions, side effects | Finds complexity and edge cases before building |
| 5. Billing Architecture | Half day | Stripe integration design: plan structure, webhook events, limit enforcement pattern | Billing errors are the most expensive bugs |
| 6. API Integration Design | Half day | Every external API: endpoint, authentication, error handling, retry pattern | Integration design prevents production incidents |
| 7. Build | 2-8 weeks | Working application in development branch | Architecture executes correctly because it was designed correctly |
| 8. Handover & Documentation | 2-3 days | Architecture document, workflow dictionary, deployment guide | A system you can maintain and extend without us |
The Non-Negotiables We Apply to Every Project
Privacy rules before data
We set privacy rules on every data type immediately after creating it, before a single record exists. We never allow a data type to exist in production without explicit access control. This is non-negotiable on every project regardless of scope or timeline.
Webhooks as source of truth for billing
Subscription status is updated only by Stripe webhooks. Never by redirect URLs. Never by frontend state. The checkout success page shows a confirmation message. The subscription status update happens only when the server receives and validates the webhook event.
No :filtered by in production
We audit every search expression before deployment. Any :filtered by found in a production build is replaced with a search constraint before we consider the feature complete. This is the single highest-impact performance rule in Bubble and one we enforce absolutely.
Denormalise for dashboard performance
Every metric displayed on a dashboard is pre-calculated and stored on the Workspace record. Dashboards read numbers, not perform calculations. This is designed into the data model from day one, not added as an optimisation after performance problems appear.
Backend workflows for anything longer than 3 steps
Any operation taking more than 3 steps that does not require immediate UI feedback belongs in a backend API workflow. This prevents partial state from client disconnection, enables error retry, and keeps the frontend responsive.
Test tenant isolation before every deployment
Two isolated browser sessions, two different workspaces. Every page in session B is navigated while session A data exists in the database. Zero records from session A must appear in session B. This test runs before every production deployment without exception.
Work With a Bubble Architect
Most developers build Bubble apps. We architect them. Data models designed for scale, multi-tenant security built from day one, Stripe billing that never fails, and workflows engineered for performance. This is what a Bubble Architect delivers.
