ADRs, Guardrails and Golden Paths

Architectural Decision Records (ADRs)

• Documenting Architecture Decisions by Michael Nygard
• Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally
  • There's also a great ADR template in there.
• ADRs need to be documented at the time the decision is made
• Include the reasoning behind why the decision was made at the time
• A lot of recommendations are to author in markdown and check in to version control
  • I think it should live in the repo for which the decision applies
• Problems
  • I have seen many cases of making general blanket architecture decisions (or suggestions) and labeling them as ADRs
• Encourage people to author ADRs as an opportunity towards career growth
• They could certainly act as an aid when outsourcing a project especially when there is the possibility of the code and maintenance coming back to you at some point.

Guardrails

• Another type of documentation I've been promoting are "guardrails" which are constraints that are put in place by some central team (e.g. CTO, Security team, etc).
• These are not ADRs in that they are general constraints that all architectures of the org are expected to be adhered to.

Golden Paths

• The 3rd type of document I've been promoting is a Golden Path or well-documented, potentially with tooling support, but repeatable path for a specific implementation.
• Golden Paths at Spotify
  • Aside: there is a system available from Spotify for managing a related developer portal for golden paths: Backstage
• AKA Paved Roads at Netflix