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Selected:Request for CommentsAssumption SurfacingARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs)Architecture Decision Record
| Criterion |  Architecture Request for Comments |  Decision Making Assumption Surfacing |  Architecture ARID (Active Reviews for Intermediate Designs) |  Architecture Architecture Decision Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | An RFC clarifies architecture context, options, and consequences. It structures technical context, alternatives, tradeoffs, open questions, and review feedback, and captures the result as an RFC document, reviewer comments, and a decision rationale. | Plans often contain assumptions that were never openly stated and remain dangerous precisely because of that. Assumption Surfacing makes these silent premises visible and prioritizes which of them carry the initiative or could sink it. | ARID examines how well developers can work with a technical design. It focuses on a part of the system that can still be revised, between the architecture overview and the detailed specification. | An ADR permanently records an architecture decision with context, trade-offs, and consequence. It creates continuity for later changes because the decision path stays traceable. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Low | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-3 Wochen vom Draft bis zur Entscheidung | 45-90 min | 2–4 h review as a planning range; preparation and evaluation additional | 15-45 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-20 Reviewer | 2-8 | Designers, developers as users, and facilitation | 1-3 |
Formatdifferent | Async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Async |
Outputdifferent | RFC document, Reviewer comments, Decision rationale, Follow-up ADR or tickets | Assumption List, Critical Assumptions, Learning Plan | Prioritized development tasks, Jointly produced code or pseudocode, Observed difficulties and open design questions, Proposed design revisions | ADR File, Decision Log, Rationale |
Tagsno overlap | ArchitectureDecisionAsyncGovernance | AssumptionsRiskDecisionDiscovery | ArchitectureEngineeringFeedbackValidationTasks | ArchitectureRationaleDocumentationGovernance |