This system design cheatsheet visualizes the architectural decision-making process for scalable systems, from initial scoping to bottleneck analysis and scaling strategies. The markdown document outlines five core steps, with nested bullet lists detailing trade-offs between vertical and horizontal scaling, caching tiers (application, database, in-memory), load balancer types, and database replication or partitioning. It references an external diagram of load balancing via an embedded image, while the text itself uses no JavaScript libraries—relying solely on structured markdown headings and emphasis for hierarchy. The content is sourced from a gist by alessioalex, presenting a concise reference rather than interactive data visualization.