The seven questions are not independent. They are ordered by dependency: answering an earlier question changes the answer to a later one.
Q1 → Q2: The system’s scaling path determines which components carry the highest failure risk. Scaling paths and failure modes share the same bottlenecks.
Q2 → Q3: Failures often trace to state that was not protected. Knowing the failure modes tells you which state stores to examine first.
Q3 → Q4: State stores are almost always on the latency critical path. Where state lives determines where latency comes from.
Q4 → Q5: Components that contribute most to latency are the hardest to change without degrading performance. Evolution paths are constrained by the latency budget.
Q5 → Q6: Security boundaries must survive evolution. An interface that changes its authentication model on upgrade creates FM8 (Schema/Contract Violation). Ask about security after you understand how the system evolves.
Q6 → Q7: You cannot monitor what you cannot define. Security events require the same observability stack as performance events. Q7 is last because it depends on knowing what needs to be visible.