Set up the foundation for the adastra-portal project: - CLAUDE.md captures durable project rules (quality bar, security/perf/a11y as first-class, language, commit conventions, ADR proactivity). - docs/ and decisions/ scaffolding with maintained indexes (docs/README.md and decisions/README.md), MADR 4.0.0 template, and tag vocabulary. - Phase-1 ADRs (0001-0006) lock structural choices: ADR usage, Nx monorepo with the apps preset, naming convention (adastra-portal / portal-shell / portal-bff), Angular CSR/zoneless/Signals/Vitest, NestJS over Express, PostgreSQL with Prisma. - docs/setup/ guides translated to English. - .gitignore covers Node/Nx artifacts and the personal notes/ scratchpad. The Nx workspace itself is not yet bootstrapped; that step is gated on a revised setup guide aligned with the ADRs.
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status, date, decision-makers, tags
| status | date | decision-makers | tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| accepted | 2026-04-29 | R&D Lead |
|
Use ADRs to record architectural decisions
Context and Problem Statement
Architecturally-significant decisions will be taken throughout the lifecycle of adastra-portal. Without a written, durable trace of why a decision was made — context, drivers, alternatives, trade-offs — that knowledge fades within months. New contributors re-litigate settled debates, the rationale of constraints (security, performance, accessibility) gets lost, and reversing a choice later becomes risky because nobody remembers what it was protecting against.
How do we record decisions in a way that is light enough to be sustained, durable enough to outlive contributor turnover, and integrated into the development workflow?
Decision Drivers
- Preserve the why of each decision so future contributors can understand or revisit it without re-deriving it.
- Make architecture reviewable — both at the time of a decision and during retrospective audits.
- Keep the format light enough that writing an ADR isn't a bureaucratic deterrent.
- Live alongside the code in version control, so decisions evolve with what they govern.
- Match the project's stated values: high technical bar, no bricolage, security/performance/accessibility as first-class concerns whose rationale must be traceable.
Considered Options
- No formal records — rely on commit messages and tribal knowledge.
- External wiki / Confluence — decisions live outside the codebase.
- ADRs in markdown using the MADR 4.0.0 format, in-repo.
- ADRs in another format (Nygard, Y-Statement, Cockburn).
Decision Outcome
Chosen option: ADRs in markdown using MADR 4.0.0, stored in decisions/ at the repository root.
Conventions are defined in README.md:
- flat folder layout (no nested category folders);
- globally sequential 4-digit numeric prefix (
NNNN-kebab-title.md); - categorization via the
tags:field in the MADR frontmatter, drawn from a canonical vocabulary; - status lifecycle:
proposed→accepted→ optionallydeprecated/superseded by ADR-NNNN; - index maintained in README.md alongside any ADR change.
Consequences
- Good, because the why of every architecturally-significant decision is captured at the moment it is made and travels with the code.
- Good, because ADRs are reviewed via the normal pull-request flow — architecture becomes an explicit team conversation.
- Good, because MADR provides enough structure (drivers, options, trade-offs) without being heavy.
- Good, because flat-folder + tags scales better than nested category folders as the count grows.
- Bad, because writing an ADR adds friction; this must be balanced against the cost of not writing one.
- Bad, because the index is maintained manually until tooling or a CI check is added.
Confirmation
- Every change introducing or transitioning the status of an ADR updates the index table in README.md in the same commit.
- PR review explicitly checks for ADR proposal whenever a non-trivial decision is being introduced.
- (Future) A CI lint job validates filename pattern, frontmatter shape, and tag vocabulary.
More Information
- MADR 4.0.0 specification: https://github.com/adr/madr
- General ADR resources: https://adr.github.io/
- Template: template.md
- Tag vocabulary: see "Tag vocabulary" in README.md.