Accepted
Software architecture decisions are often made during development but are not formally documented. This can lead to a loss of institutional knowledge, inconsistent approaches, and challenges for new team members trying to understand the rationale behind the system's design. Without a clear record, the context for specific design choices can be forgotten, leading to costly re-evaluations or deviations from established patterns.
We will adopt Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) as a lightweight mechanism to document significant architectural decisions. Each ADR will be a short Markdown file stored alongside the code in a dedicated docs/adr directory. New ADRs will be created for any decision that has a significant impact on the project's structure, technology choices, or long-term maintainability.
ADRs will follow a standardized template (inspired by Michael Nygard's approach) and will be version-controlled with the codebase. This ensures that decisions and their context are easily accessible and remain synchronized with the evolving project.
- Improved Knowledge Transfer: New team members can quickly understand the rationale behind key architectural choices.
- Consistency: Encourages consistent application of design principles across the project.
- Accountability: Provides a clear record of decisions, making it easier to track and understand the evolution of the system.
- Reduced Rework: Avoids re-litigating past decisions due to forgotten context.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates discussion and review of significant decisions.
- Initial Overhead: Requires a small amount of effort to write and maintain ADRs.
- Potential for Stale Docs: If not diligently maintained, ADRs can become outdated, though this is mitigated by being version-controlled.