architecture-decision-records

An Architecture Decision Record (ADR) captures the context, decision, and rationale behind significant architectural choices. You need ADRs to preserve rationale, enable future review, and support onboarding and governance across multiple services, migrations, and technology choices.

To document architectural decisions, create a markdown file like ADR-0001.md using the MADR template in your docs/adr directory. This provides consistent templates and guidance to record the context, decision, and rationale for your architecture.

Manage the ADR lifecycle by tracking its status through Proposed, Accepted, Superseded, and Deprecated stages. This lifecycle management ensures that architectural decisions and their rationale remain traceable as your software architecture evolves across projects.

Yes, you can cross-reference and link related ADRs to build a decision graph. Linking related architectural decisions preserves traceability and connects the rationale across multiple services, migrations, and technology choices within your projects.

The best way to govern architectural decisions across multiple services is to establish consistent ADR documentation with templates, lifecycle management, and cross-referencing. This approach provides governance guidelines and preserves the rationale behind technology choices and migrations.

Use ADRs instead of general documentation because they provide structured templates and lifecycle stages specifically for architectural decisions. Unlike standard docs, ADRs enable cross-referencing to build a decision graph and preserve rationale for future review and onboarding.