Service Registry
Noun · Development
Definitions
A centralized or distributed catalog (such as Consul, Eureka, or etcd) where microservices register their network location on startup and query to discover other services, enabling dynamic routing without hard-coded addresses.
In plain English: A directory where services announce their addresses so other services can find and talk to them without hard-coding locations.
Example: "When the payments service scales up, new instances register with Consul and the API gateway discovers them automatically through the service registry."