Architecture

Create and evaluate architecture decision records (ADRs). Use when choosing between technologies, documenting design decisions with trade-offs, reviewing system design proposals, or designing new components from requirements.

The Architecture skill helps you make and document high-quality system design decisions. It structures thinking around context, options, trade-offs, and consequences — producing ADRs that future engineers will actually want to read.

When to use

Trigger when choosing between technologies (e.g. Kafka vs SQS), documenting a design decision, reviewing a system design proposal, or designing a new component from requirements and constraints.

Examples

Choose a message queue

Evaluate and document a technology choice decision

We need to choose between Kafka, SQS, and RabbitMQ for our event pipeline. Write an ADR.

Design a new service

Create architecture for a new system component

Design a rate-limiting service for our API gateway. We handle 50k req/s at peak.

Review a proposal

Critique and improve an existing architecture design

Review this architecture proposal for our new auth service and flag any concerns.