Where should i store the external client DTOs of my microservice?

Question

I have a doubt about the architecture of the app I am working on. It is built like this following modules:

module-app
module-domain
module-rest
module-rest-api
module-rest-client

In the module-rest-api I store the DTOs of my controllers. But now i have to add others DTOs to call an external client.

So the question is, where do i have to implement those external DTO, in the module-rest-apior inside the external client package into the module-app?

I would appreciate some help, thank you.

Answer 1

There's no one answer here because where you put those DTO's very much depends on personal preference.

For example, you could have a module-dto. In the module-dto you could have a number of packages and divide them by purpose e.g.

com.mycompany.project.dto.outbound.   //for external requests
com.mycompany.project.dto.inbound.    //for incoming api requests

This way you can just import your dto module anywhere. I've always maintained my DTO's is a standalone module for this very reason that I can just use it then from anywhere then.