adr-authoring

Architecture Decision Records capture design rationale and trade-offs for non-obvious, consequential, or cross-cutting architectural choices. You need them during the software design phase to prevent the costly re-litigation of settled choices and ensure future engineers understand system reasoning.

You can standardize architectural decisions by using a structured ADR template with automated scaffolding to capture context, options, rationale, and trade-offs. This ensures every decision record meets consistent quality criteria and supports structured supersession chains for long-term system evolution.

To generate an architecture decision record, run the scaffold script by providing the product name and a descriptive slug. This automatically creates a standardized document structure for capturing your design rationale and trade-offs.

Yes, automated scripts can mechanically validate ADRs to verify they meet quality criteria, such as the presence of explicit trade-offs and consequence analysis. This ensures your decision records maintain structural integrity and capture necessary design rationale.

You can manage durable architecture principles separately from point-in-time decisions using principle management features. This distinguishes general guidance from specific architectural choices, ensuring overarching rules are preserved even when individual decisions are superseded.

Informal architectural documentation often leads to inconsistent, undocumented, or forgotten decisions, which causes the costly re-litigation of settled choices. Without structured supersession chains, future engineers may fail to understand the reasoning behind the system's design.