Fair point on structs - the context object itself isn't the problem, it's what ends up inside it. When the struct is a clean data container (transaction, amounts, dates, account codes) it works great.
Where I've seen it go sideways is when it accumulates process state: wasTransferDetected, skipVATCalculation, needsManualReview, originalMatchConfidence. Now you have a data object that's also a control flow object, and understanding the code means understanding which flags get set where and what downstream checks them.
Your point about discrete success/failure conditions is well taken though. We moved toward exactly that - each phase either returns its result or an explicit error, and the orchestrator handles the failures instead of stuffing error flags into the context for later. Bit more boilerplate but much easier to reason about.
Where I've seen it go sideways is when it accumulates process state: wasTransferDetected, skipVATCalculation, needsManualReview, originalMatchConfidence. Now you have a data object that's also a control flow object, and understanding the code means understanding which flags get set where and what downstream checks them.
Your point about discrete success/failure conditions is well taken though. We moved toward exactly that - each phase either returns its result or an explicit error, and the orchestrator handles the failures instead of stuffing error flags into the context for later. Bit more boilerplate but much easier to reason about.