Catalog, Impact, and Evaluation of Microservice Bad Smells: A Systematic Literature Review

ABSTRACT Microservice bad smells (MBSs) affect system quality. However, the lack of comprehensive and detailed explanations of MBSs and current classification methods does not comprehensively encompass the microservice characteristics, making it challenging to study and address MBSs. Existing studies have focused on MBS detection methods, but identifying and quantifying the effects of different smells and properly assessing system health remain challenging. This review aims to provide an exhaustive list of the MBSs and formulate a reasonable classification based on microservice characteristics. By reasonably assessing the harmfulness of smells, we would comprehensively explain different MBSs. We would explore microservice system evaluation methods and propose a microservice system health assessment model (MSHAM) based on MBSs. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of the catalog and evaluation literature in the field of MBSs. We also combined the open questionnaire form to answer the research questions qualitatively and quantitatively. This paper presents a comprehensive list of 69 types of MBSs, incorporating a highly scalable classification. Following the quality characteristics in ISO/IEC 25010:2023, we determined the sets of characteristics affected by different smells, and provided detailed explanations of smells in the form of MBSs knowledge base. Furthermore, we introduced the MSHAM, revealing the quantification process of harmfulness. The formulated smells list and classification method capture MBS characteristics comprehensively, ensuring scalability. We have exposed the impact of MBSs, enhancing researcher and practitioner understanding. MSHAM provides a logical model to quantify MBSs harm and system health, supporting the development of real‐time health monitoring.