Document a architecture decision for an option. This is useful to state the reasons and the options that have been evaluated. Later other team members will have it easier to understand the decision.
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architecture-decision- Suite
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Description
Document an architecture decision for an option. This is useful to state the reasons and the options that have been evaluated. Later other team members will have it easier to understand your decision.
Properties
The document type architecture decision provides the following properties:
Please note that only information about specific properties is provided here. Common document property used by all document types are documented by Document Properties.
Type
Types allow to group decisions. A project demands its own definition of types via the decision type document type.
Sections
Problem
Define the problem that this decision solves.
The problem has the following subsections.
Problem Constraints
Define constraints imposed on possible decisions.
These constraints are described in the following subsections.
Assumptions
Decisions have to be made in situations where not every information detail is available. Otherwise the path to take would be clear without any doubts. To close the gaps between known and unknown assumptions have to be made. This section allows to document the assumption so that the decision is better understandable later.
Alternatives
Define possible alternatives you have discussed.
Decision
Provide information about why this option has been selected, who was involved in the decision and what consequences arise.
Deciders
List names of the stakeholders, who took part in the decision.
If there is uncertainty about why this decision has been made, these stakeholders may provide additional information. Consider then to include this information in this document.
Notes
These are internal notes that are usually not exported and only visible to team members with write access.
But this is not a safe place to store sensible information. It is just a convenience for the reader to not be bothered with notes stored here for the authors for later use. The security level is about suppressing the representation by a CSS style. Therefore consider this as a convenience for the reader, not as a security tool.
The text of notes sections is also indexed.
References
For a document the references section contains pointers to resources that prove the statements of the document.
Often these proofs are not easily distinguishable from further information. In this case you may want to skip the reference section in favour for the resource list.
For further information please refer to References and Resources.
Resources
The resources section provides references to further information to the topic of the document.
This may be information on the internet provided by the resource or information in the team's information systems. Anything the reader of the resource might want to know, may be listed here.
For further information please refer to References and Resources.
Related Doctypes
Decision Type
Allows to categorize specifically on decisions. The type 'architecture' may tag decisions to be relevant for the architecture of the system.
Alternative
Alternatives may be documented in greater detail if it is relevant to have the research results available for later reference.
Resources
- For a more detailed introduction to architecure decisions, please refer to Stefan Zörner's book Software Architekturen dokumentieren und kommunizieren, chapter 3.