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The ADR workflow is a structured process for creating, maintaining, and tracking Architectural Decision Records. It standardizes templates, responsibilities, and review cycles to increase transparency and traceability of architecture decisions. It includes templates, workflow steps, and integration points with issue trackers for repeatable decision-making ac…
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Executable approach: can be applied and produces an outcome.
What organizes, connects, or makes decisions possible.
An ADR workflow is a repeatable process through which teams propose, review, approve, and preserve significant architecture decisions. Its central artifact is a short Architectural Decision Record.
Michael Nygard popularized the ADR format in 2011 with his article “Documenting Architecture Decisions.” The approach grew from agile teams' need to preserve the context and consequences of long-lived architecture decisions in a lightweight form close to development work.
Think of a version-controlled decision log. A team recognizes a question that is difficult to reverse and opens an ADR containing status, context, decision, and consequences. Stakeholders review the proposal and mark it accepted once they agree. If the architecture changes later, the old entry remains and a new ADR visibly supersedes it. Individual decisions therefore form a readable history of architectural evolution.
A long-lived or hard-to-reverse architecture question starts the workflow.
Status, context, decision, and consequences keep the outcome and its rationale together.
Stakeholders examine the proposal and make its current validity visible.
A new decision replaces an earlier one through an explicit link without deleting its historical context.
The collection of ADRs shows how the architecture and its rationale evolved.
An ADR workflow helps with decisions whose rationale will matter later to other teams, new members, or modernization efforts. It remains effective when trigger criteria, ownership, storage, and status maintenance are clear; for small, temporary, or easily reversible changes, a formal ADR often costs more than it contributes.
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