The first chapter of the arc42 Template with information on requirements, quality goals, and stakeholders.
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swad-section-introduction- Suite
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The introduction to the architecture documentation lists the driving forces that software architects must consider in their decisions. This includes on the one hand the fulfilment of functional requirements of the stakeholders, on the other hand the fulfilment of or compliance with required constraints, always in consideration of the architecture goals.
This is the first chapter of the arc42 Template.
Properties
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Sections
Description
Provide an overview over the information on this document. Readers may decide on this description if the document contains relevant information to them.
Summary
Provide a summary of the documents structure and key points. This is an informative abstract typically of about 100 to 200 words.
Requirements Overview
Provide an overview over the most important functional requirements.
More help to document requirements in this overview is found on docs.arc42.org.
Typically you add documents of type Requirement to the homepage of requirements and then reference the most important ones with the Display Table Macro.
Alternatively you may use the Tour Macro and reference the requirement documents individually.
In either case you typically do not attach the requirement documents as children to this document. The requirements and therefore their descriptions exist without the need of the existence of this document. This document is only a view, albeit an important one.
You may also create a Section document and attach this as a child to this document. Section documents share the lifespan of the parent and are removed with them. If you use a section document, the requirement overview may be easier to reference if requested. The document can be edited independently of other information. Typically is depends on the amount of information specified, if a separate document is advisable.
Quality Goals
Provide an overview over the top three (max five) goals for the architecture and/or constraints whose fulfillment is of highest importance to the major stakeholders.
More help to document quality goals in this overview is found on docs.arc42.org.
Typically you add documents of type Quality Target to the homepage of quality targets and then reference ones with the highest priority with the Display Table Macro.
Alternatively you may use the Tour Macro and reference the quality target documents individually.
In either case you typically do not attach the quality target documents as children to this document, for the same reasons as given for the requirements.
The same reasons for creating a subordinate document exist as for the requirement overview.
Stakeholders
List of the most important persons or organizations that are affected by can contribute to the architecture.
More help to document stakeholders in this overview is found on docs.arc42.org.
Typically you add documents of type Stakeholder to the homepage of stakeholders and then reference those with an impact on the architecture with the Display Table Macro. You may also want to reference Roles in case there is no single stakeholder to reference.
Alternatively you may use the Tour Macro and reference the quality target documents individually.
In either case you typically do not attach the quality target documents as children to this document, for the same reasons as given for the requirements.
The same reasons for creating a subordinate document exist as for the requirement overview.
Notes
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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.
References
The text in the expand boxes is transcluded from the arc42 GitHub project where the arc42 Template is maintained by the original authors and supporters.
arc42 is owned by Dr. Peter Hruschka & Dr. Gernot Starke.