Documenting Architecture Decisions.¶
Nygard, M. T. (2011). Documenting Architecture Decisions. Cognitect.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Memoing
- Software engineering. Architecture Decision Records capturing each significant decision with context, alternatives, and rationale in version control; commit messages and design docs carrying the in-flight reasoning between code-state checkpoints.
This sourceDefines the Architecture Decision Record—an append-only, dated, version-controlled record of each significant decision's context, chosen option, rejected alternatives, and rationale.
- Software engineering. Architecture Decision Records capturing each significant decision with context, alternatives, and rationale in version control; commit messages and design docs carrying the in-flight reasoning between code-state checkpoints.
Mechanisms¶
- Decision Rationale Template
- Its strength is accountability over time: it converts a decision into an auditable object, which is precisely what an Architecture Decision Record was invented to do — capture the context, the choice, and the consequences so a later engineer understands why, not just what.
This sourceNygard's ADR format records context, decision, status, and consequences so future developers can recover the motivation behind an architectural choice.
- Its strength is accountability over time: it converts a decision into an auditable object, which is precisely what an Architecture Decision Record was invented to do — capture the context, the choice, and the consequences so a later engineer understands why, not just what.
- Decision Record with Deferred Refinement
- Modeled on the Architecture Decision Record
This sourceExplains that decision records preserve past rationale so future developers do not blindly reverse decisions and can recognize when changed context calls for revisiting longer-term intentions.
- Modeled on the Architecture Decision Record
Verification¶
This reference passed the adversarial substantiation pipeline: it was checked to exist and to support the claim it is attached to. See how references were verified.
Registry ID ref:90d26a571847 · see in the full table