Why Event-Driven
Synchronous REST can’t keep up with multi-system integration velocity. Event-driven decouples producers from consumers, scales independently, handles failure better. 2026’s composable architecture assumes event-driven substrate.
The Salesforce Primitives
Platform Events (user-defined events). Change Data Capture (automatic events on record changes). Pub/Sub API (gRPC-based modern subscriber). Real-Time Event Monitoring (security and usage events).
Common Patterns
CDC events drive downstream syncs to warehouses and operational systems. Platform Events carry domain actions to external systems. Pub/Sub API simplifies subscriber code in modern languages.
Governance
Events aren’t free. Monitor volume, retention, throughput. Set quotas per publisher to prevent runaway event generation. Consumers must be idempotent — Salesforce’s at-least-once semantics mean duplicates happen.