Decision Framework

Every decision record — whether published in the Journal or kept as internal documentation — follows the same six fields, in this order, so a reader who knows the format can find any part of any decision without re-reading the whole entry:

1. Context — what situation or problem made a decision necessary.

2. Alternatives considered — the real options that were weighed, not a strawman set built to make the eventual choice look obvious.

3. Decision — the specific choice made, stated plainly, without hedging into ambiguity.

4. Reasoning — why this option over the others, referencing the alternatives by name.

5. Evidence — what specific information supported the decision at the time it was made, distinguished from information that only became available afterward.

6. Next review condition — what would have to be observed for this decision to be revisited, stated at the time of the decision rather than invented retroactively once something goes wrong.

This is not a retrospective summary written to justify a decision after the fact. A record produced after the outcome is already known is marked as such — reconstructed, not contemporaneous — because reasoning written with the benefit of hindsight is a different, less useful kind of evidence than reasoning written before the outcome existed.

This template is the structural basis for every Journal entry (What changed, why, what alternatives existed, what decision was made, what evidence informed it, what happens next — the same six fields in slightly different wording for a public-facing format) and for internal architecture and governance records that are not yet public. The two should never diverge in structure, only in what level of detail is appropriate to publish.