Architecture Decision Record
Writes an ADR that captures why, including the options rejected and what would make you revisit it.
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Running it, start to finish
- Capture the constraints while they are still true and remembered.
- Write the rejected options at their strongest.
- Set a concrete revisit condition before marking it accepted.
What you get back
The output this produces, every time.
- Records the constraints that were true at the time, which is the part that ages best and is usually thinnest.
- Steelmans the rejected options, so a future reader trusts the analysis.
- Names the conditions for revisiting, without which the decision becomes permanent by default.
Getting better results
Where this usually goes wrong, and how to avoid it.
- Write the constraints in full. Team size, deadline, what already existed. A future reader judging the decision without them will conclude it was wrong.
- Do not dismiss alternatives quickly. A one-clause rejection reads as though the option was not seriously considered, and invites someone to reconsider it from scratch.
- Fill in revisit-when. It is the difference between a decision and a permanent constraint nobody remembers choosing.
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Written for The AI University. Every prompt in this library is original work — authored, tested and revised here, not collected from elsewhere. 365 of them, free with an account.