Do you use Architecture Decision Records? I’m a big fan, and I think they’re a best practice every engineering org should adopt. 📐
🙋 What is an ADR?
An Architecture Decision Record (ADR) is a lightweight document that captures architectural decisions.
A good ADR typically consists of:
- The context behind the problem
- The options considered
- The decision made, including the why
Different companies/teams will add their own spin, but these are the core elements.
🤔 Why ADRs Matter
The ADR itself is helpful; it gives product, architecture, and engineering teams a shared reference point. Clear documentation reduces ambiguity, enabling teams to align and build effectively.
But the real value is the process.
Writing an ADR forces you to explore alternatives, consider trade-offs, and debate options objectively. If done well, ADRs capture everyone’s input and clearly document why a path was chosen.
This keeps architectural decisions grounded in logic rather than bias or preferences.
🧠 Final Thoughts
The documentation and process are valuable, but they only work with the right culture.
Teams need a culture where:
- Everyone is free to contribute to architectural decisions
- Diverse options are encouraged
- Decisions are made objectively
- ADRs are accessible and visible to everyone
Without the culture, the process becomes a formality and a burden of red tape.
With the right culture, ADRs become a powerful tool for making well-balanced & transparent decisions.
Of course, that culture and the process need to be embraced by all levels of the team. ADRs are only as useful as the effort you put into them.
Top comments (1)
You can use GitHub Actions to automatically surface architectural decision records on PRs
Something I've been experimenting with on my team — we keep getting bitten by "why was this done this way?" on PRs touching critical code. CODEOWNERS tells you who should review, but not why the code matters.
The pattern we landed on:
Keep a markdown file in your repo (e.g., .decisions/decisions.md) with structured decision records — what was decided, why, what alternatives were rejected, and which files are affected Use a GitHub Action that watches PRs, checks if any changed files match the patterns in your decisions, and posts a comment with the relevant context The comment shows up automatically — no one has to remember to check the docs The result: new devs get immediate context like "this DB config was load-tested at 5K req/s, don't change pool size without re-testing."
There's an open-source action that does this called Decision Guardian if anyone wants to try it out — it's MIT licensed, runs entirely within your GitHub runner (no external calls), and handles glob patterns, regex matching, etc.
github.com/DecispherHQ/decision-gu...