Architecture & communication

A decision that travels.

A general architecture study: make the reasoning behind a decision understandable to someone who was not in the room.

Status

Design study

Contribution

Decision record example.

The question

What should the next person know before they change the decision?

The approach

Start with one question and the constraints that matter. Separate what is known from what is still assumed.
Compare a small set of options against those constraints. Record the cost of each choice, including the option to do nothing.
State the decision, its consequences and the evidence that would justify revisiting it.

Worked example

Teaching example: a small service must send a confirmation after saving a request.
Option A: wait for confirmation before replying. This makes the reply depend on the second service being available.
Option B: save a pending confirmation and send it later. This adds retries, duplicate handling and a way to find requests still waiting.
Example decision: choose B only if a delayed confirmation is acceptable and there is an owner for the pending work. Record that assumption and review it if the delay becomes a problem.

What this provides

A practical structure for a short decision record: question, context, options, decision, consequences and review trigger.