You've probably heard "Clean Architecture" thrown around in job descriptions, code reviews, and tech talks. Maybe you've nodded along without being entirely sure what it means in practice.

This article is a practical version. No theory overload — just what Clean Architecture is, why it matters, and what it looks like in a real .NET 10 project with actual folder structure and code.

This is part of a series on building production .NET APIs:

Part 1 — Why I Stopped Using MediatR and Built CQRS From Scratch in .NET 10

Part 2 — Clean Architecture in .NET 10 — The Big Picture ← you are here

Part 3 — The Domain Layer — Entities, Value Objects, and Aggregates (coming soon)

Part 4 — The Application Layer — Use Cases, CQRS, and Validation (coming soon)

Part 5 — The Infrastructure Layer — EF Core + Dapper (coming soon)

Part 6 — The Api Layer — Controllers, Routing, and Result Mapping (coming soon)

Part 7 — Testing Clean Architecture — Unit, Integration, and E2E (coming soon)

The problem it solves

Before…