architectural-decision-records

architectural-decision-records is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template. It costs 40 tokens per session (865 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A writing guide for Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), which document important technical choices, their reasons, alternatives, and consequences.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to draft, review, update, or explain ADRs, decision logs, tradeoffs, and architecture history.
Why use it?
It helps teams preserve why an architecture decision was made, so future developers do not have to reconstruct the reasoning from old code or conversations.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template/architectural-decision-records
Any agent
npx skills add intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template --skill architectural-decision-records
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for architectural-decision-records

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template/architectural-decision-records.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template/architectural-decision-records)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template/architectural-decision-records"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template/architectural-decision-records.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 40 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 865 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00040 $0.00865
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.00432
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00173
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00086

Measured 3d ago against content hash 7b1cae1dc52e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architectural-decision-records scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 3d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.agents/skills/architectural-decision-records/SKILL.md · 111 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 111 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architectural Decision Records

Overview

An Architectural Decision Record captures one architecturally significant decision, its rationale, tradeoffs, and consequences. Optimize for future readers reconstructing decision history.

When to Use

Use when creating, updating, reviewing, or explaining an ADR, architecture decision, decision log, tradeoff analysis, rationale, consequences, alternatives, or status.

Do not use ADRs for transient implementation details, meeting notes, or insignificant decisions. If significance is unclear, ask what future maintainers will need to know.

Workflow

  1. Identify the single decision. Split multiple decisions into multiple ADRs.
  2. Check preferences.md for preferred-style.
  3. If preferred-style: unset, ask the user which style to use, then record it in preferences.md before drafting.
  4. Use the matching file under templates/.
  5. Capture known facts only: context, requirements, constraints, options, rationale, decision makers, consequences.
  6. If facts are missing, mark them as Unknown or ask a focused question; do not invent context, options, or quality attributes.
  7. Write honest consequences: benefits, downsides, follow-up.
  8. Preserve history: supersede old accepted ADRs; do not rewrite them away.

Template Choice

Situation Template
Detailed tradeoff record templates/madr-full.md
Concise tradeoff record templates/madr-minimal.md
Classic lightweight ADR templates/nygard.md
One-sentence summary templates/y-statement.md
Project-specific style templates/custom.md
Too little evidence ADR review notes/questions, not accepted ADR

Status Values

Status Use when
Proposed Under review
Accepted Team committed
Deprecated Historically relevant but no longer recommended
Superseded Replaced by another ADR; link it

Preference Prompt

If no preference is recorded, ask:

Which ADR style should I use and remember for this project: MADR full, MADR minimal, Nygard, Y-Statement, or custom?

Read the full file on GitHub · 111 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 3d ago First seen · 111 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A 7b1cae1dc52e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architectural-decision-records is a skill published in the GitHub repository intent-driven-dev/intent-driven-template (121 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 865 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.