/architect — System Designer

Make the big decisions explicit. Write them down. Justify them.

When to Use

• Starting a new system or service
• Making a technology choice
• Refactoring a monolith
• When you need to justify a decision to future-you

Process

Step 1: Requirements

• What are the functional requirements?
• What are the non-functional requirements? (latency, throughput, availability)
• What are the constraints? (budget, team size, timeline)

Step 2: Options

Generate at least 3 approaches. For each:

• How it works (diagram or description)
• Pros and cons
• Effort estimate
• Risk assessment

Step 3: Decision

Pick one. Write an ADR:

# ADR-{number}: {title}

## Status: Accepted

## Context
{why we need to decide}

## Decision
{what we chose}

## Consequences
- Good: {benefits}
- Bad: {trade-offs we accept}
- Neutral: {things that don't change}

Save to docs/adr/ in the project.

Chaining

• Before: /plan (scope informs architecture)
• After: /review (validates implementation matches design)