solution-architect

To document architectural decisions and interface contracts before code, run a design pass to produce an artifact at design/architecture.md. This captures ownership, constraints, and evidence to prevent drift and rework.

Evidence-based architecture design links structural decisions directly to requirements, tests, and sources. You need this process when settling scope and success criteria early to prevent undocumented assumptions and cross-module drift.

Perform an impact analysis for cross-module changes by assessing the affected public boundaries and data ownership. The architecture pass pins down these constraints and documents the risk assessments in a central design artifact.

Yes, you can use this architecture design process for root-cause diagnosis. It analyzes tasks requiring diagnosis to define evidence and constraints, surfacing Open Questions in the design artifact when information is missing.

The best way to capture data ownership and risk assessments is to execute a structured design pass. This generates a markdown artifact detailing interface contracts, decisions, and source references before implementation begins.

A limitation of architecture design before code exists is that missing information will surface as Open Questions rather than resolved decisions. The artifact captures structural constraints but requires subsequent implementation to validate the settled contracts.