Managing Detailed Design Analysis in Orchestrator/Architect Workflows

[gamblac]

disclaimer: below question is constructed via AI, but based on human interaction (my original questions to Claude)

Question

I understand that when Orchestrator delegates to Architect mode, only a summary returns to the parent task by design (to prevent context pollution). However, I'm curious about how the community handles preserving valuable detailed analysis that gets generated during architectural subtasks.

The Challenge

When Architect mode performs extensive design work—creating detailed system architectures, defining local coding standards, establishing design patterns, outlining component interactions, etc.—all of this valuable detail is condensed into a brief summary upon subtask completion.

What happens to all the detailed analysis if it's not explicitly saved as .md files before completion?

What I'm Looking For

I'd love to hear from the community about:

📋 Workflow Strategies

• Do you manually save architectural documentation as .md files during the Architect subtask?
• How do you structure your project documentation to capture these details?
• Do you use specific naming conventions or folder structures?

🔄 Process Best Practices

• At what point do you instruct Architect mode to create documentation files?
• How do you balance detailed documentation vs. keeping summaries concise?
• Do you have any "local rules" or prompts you use to ensure important details are preserved?

🛠️ Workarounds or Custom Solutions

• Have you customized the Orchestrator or Architect modes to better handle this?
• Any MCP integrations or tools that help with documentation management?
• Creative solutions for maintaining design context across subtasks?

📚 Documentation Patterns

• How do you organize architectural decisions, design rationale, and technical specifications?
• Do you maintain living documentation that gets updated by different subtasks?
• Any templates or standards you use for architectural documentation?

Context

This seems like a common challenge when working on complex projects where architectural thinking is crucial but the workflow optimization (rightfully) prioritizes clean, focused summaries. I'm hoping to learn from others who've developed effective patterns for this.

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Tags: orchestrator-mode, architect-mode, workflow, documentation, best-practices