Files
holocron/plugins/bin/skills/grill-with-docs/references/adr-format.md
Defame1297 4f49b2a249 refactor(bin): move non-spec root files into references/ across four skills
grill-with-docs, improve-codebase-architecture, tdd, and triage kept
non-spec markdown files at their skill root, in violation of
skill-audit's file-structure.md rule (only SKILL.md/README.md belong
at the root; everything else lives in scripts/, references/, assets/
or tests/). A root-level file is invisible to the ADR-0020
dangling-reference gate, which only resolves unqualified
`references/...` pointers.

- Moved and renamed to lowercase-kebab-case under references/:
  grill-with-docs (ADR-FORMAT.md, CONTEXT-FORMAT.md),
  improve-codebase-architecture (DEEPENING.md, INTERFACE-DESIGN.md,
  LANGUAGE.md), tdd (five files, casing was already fine), triage
  (AGENT-BRIEF.md, OUT-OF-SCOPE.md).
- Updated every in-skill link to the new references/ paths, including
  link text that still showed the old uppercase filenames.
- Fixed improve-codebase-architecture/SKILL.md's cross-skill citation
  of grill-with-docs's two files to the sanctioned possessive form
  with the references/ segment included.
- Updated all four skills' README.md file tables to match.
- Regenerated the flat content mirror via
  scripts/sync-plugin-content.sh --all.

Fixes #122.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PDj6F7SPXzh3FtPN78dZ88
2026-09-09 19:59:02 +00:00

48 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown

# ADR Format
ADRs live in `docs/adr/` and use sequential numbering: `0001-slug.md`, `0002-slug.md`, etc.
Create the `docs/adr/` directory lazily — only when the first ADR is needed.
## Template
```md
# {Short title of the decision}
{1-3 sentences: what's the context, what did we decide, and why.}
```
That's it. An ADR can be a single paragraph. The value is in recording *that* a decision was made and *why* — not in filling out sections.
## Optional sections
Only include these when they add genuine value. Most ADRs won't need them.
- **Status** frontmatter (`proposed | accepted | deprecated | superseded by ADR-NNNN`) — useful when decisions are revisited
- **Considered Options** — only when the rejected alternatives are worth remembering
- **Consequences** — only when non-obvious downstream effects need to be called out
## Numbering
Scan `docs/adr/` for the highest existing number and increment by one.
## When to offer an ADR
All three of these must be true:
1. **Hard to reverse** — the cost of changing your mind later is meaningful
2. **Surprising without context** — a future reader will look at the code and wonder "why on earth did they do it this way?"
3. **The result of a real trade-off** — there were genuine alternatives and you picked one for specific reasons
If a decision is easy to reverse, skip it — you'll just reverse it. If it's not surprising, nobody will wonder why. If there was no real alternative, there's nothing to record beyond "we did the obvious thing."
### What qualifies
- **Architectural shape.** "We're using a monorepo." "The write model is event-sourced, the read model is projected into Postgres."
- **Integration patterns between contexts.** "Ordering and Billing communicate via domain events, not synchronous HTTP."
- **Technology choices that carry lock-in.** Database, message bus, auth provider, deployment target. Not every library — just the ones that would take a quarter to swap out.
- **Boundary and scope decisions.** "Customer data is owned by the Customer context; other contexts reference it by ID only." The explicit no-s are as valuable as the yes-s.
- **Deliberate deviations from the obvious path.** "We're using manual SQL instead of an ORM because X." Anything where a reasonable reader would assume the opposite. These stop the next engineer from "fixing" something that was deliberate.
- **Constraints not visible in the code.** "We can't use AWS because of compliance requirements." "Response times must be under 200ms because of the partner API contract."
- **Rejected alternatives when the rejection is non-obvious.** If you considered GraphQL and picked REST for subtle reasons, record it — otherwise someone will suggest GraphQL again in six months.