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An architecture decision record (ADR) captures a significant technical choice, why the team made it, and the consequences it accepted. It helps a future maintainer answer a practical question: “What were they thinking?” ADR Guard is described as a GitHub Action that checks whether watched code changes are accompanied by an ADR update; it is a narrow reminder mechanism, not a replacement for clear records or sound review.
What an ADR records
The UK government’s architecture framework defines an ADR as a formal document for capturing a significant architectural decision. The decision may affect a system’s structure, quality attributes, or behavior. Google Cloud describes ADRs as a way to explain why infrastructure or application teams made design choices. GOV.UK’s architecture decisions guidance and Google Cloud’s ADR guidance both frame the record around the choice and its reasoning, rather than merely documenting what was built.
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A useful ADR makes the decision understandable without requiring a reader to reconstruct the debate from old pull requests or conversations. It normally states the context and important requirements, identifies the chosen option, and records relevant consequences. Those consequences include costs and limitations as well as benefits: a decision can solve one problem while creating constraints elsewhere.
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Which decisions merit a record?
Use an ADR when a technical choice is significant enough that a later maintainer may need its rationale. Useful triggers include an unresolved technical question, a choice between plausible engineering options, a decision that affects system qualities or behavior, or a solution whose reasoning is not documented accessibly. Routine implementation details do not automatically need records; the goal is to preserve decisions whose context would otherwise be easy to lose.
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How to make ADRs useful over time
Keep one decision in each record
A focused record is easier to find, discuss, and supersede than one document that bundles unrelated choices. The UK Ministry of Justice’s ADR guidance recommends one significant decision per record. It also describes sequential numbering that is not reused. Those are that team’s conventions, not universal rules: teams can adopt different identifiers and templates so long as records remain easy to locate and reference.
Write the trade-offs, not just the sales pitch
Include the circumstances that shaped the choice, the options considered where relevant, and the decision made. Then state the positive, negative, and neutral consequences. Recording accepted drawbacks is particularly valuable: it tells future readers which limitations were understood at the time, rather than making them guess whether a cost was accidental or deliberate.
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Put records where the affected people can find them
Google Cloud says teams often keep ADR Markdown files close to the relevant codebase. The Ministry of Justice team uses a public repository. A code-adjacent location can make a service-level decision easier to discover during development; a central register may help readers find decisions spanning teams or systems. The right arrangement depends on scope and discoverability, and a team can link a central index to records stored beside code.
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Do not erase an old ADR simply because the system has moved on. Mark the earlier decision as superseded and add a new record explaining the changed context and current choice. The history then shows both what was chosen and why later constraints or technology justified a change. The Ministry of Justice guidance and Google Cloud’s ADR guidance support retaining the record of the earlier decision rather than silently replacing it.
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What ADR Guard is described as doing
A GitHub repository that lists ADR resources describes ADR Guard as an automated pull-request check: when watched code paths change without a new or updated ADR, the action fails the pull request. Its description also says an ADR-Exempt: line with a reason can exempt a change. In that model, the check connects selected code changes to the team’s ADR practice and makes omissions visible during review. It cannot determine whether an ADR is thoughtful, accurate, or complete.
The available description is not a verified, current specification for the action. It does not establish present configuration syntax beyond the described exemption, compatibility, security properties, maintenance status, or effectiveness. Before adopting it, check the action’s primary repository, current workflow instructions, release history, and action definition; those details can change. The resource-listing description is available at the ADR resources repository.
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Choosing an ADR workflow
ADR practices are conventions, not a single mandatory process. Compare the choices against how your team works:
| Decision area | Practical choice | What to weigh |
|---|---|---|
| Discoverability | Keep records near the relevant code, use a central register, or link the two | Whether maintainers can find a service decision in context and whether cross-team decisions need a shared index |
| Scope | Record service-level decisions, cross-team decisions, or both | Which people and systems are affected, and who needs to review the rationale |
| Friction | Use a concise template and lightweight review | Enough structure to capture context and consequences without making record-writing a bureaucratic exercise |
| History handling | Retain superseded records and link them to the replacement | Whether a reader can follow how and why the architecture changed |
| Enforcement | Rely on team convention or add a CI check such as the described ADR Guard pattern | Whether a reminder prevents omissions without creating noisy failures for changes that do not warrant an ADR |
Start with a clear threshold for what counts as a significant decision and a template short enough to use. If missed records are a recurring problem, consider an automated check for carefully selected paths. Keep exemptions reasoned and reviewable, and ensure the team can correct watched paths and rules as the codebase changes.
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