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Architecture Work Registry as Authoritative Architectural Backlog

1. Decisions

Decision

Establish Architecture Work as the authoritative architectural change backlog for CAS.

Rationale

AEM regeneration currently discards manually introduced planning information. Architectural evolution should be persisted in Architecture Work artifacts and summarized by downstream governance artifacts.

Decision Type: adoption

Decision Status: proposed

2. Prompt Changes

conversation-to-architecture-work.v1.md

Change:

  • Added initiative classification
  • Added lifecycle_state classification
  • Added related_work support
  • Added architecture work lifecycle heuristics

Reason:

Improve Architecture Work traceability, deduplication, and evolution tracking.

architecture_work_template.md

Change:

  • Added initiative
  • Added category
  • Added related_work
  • Added lifecycle_state

Reason:

Align Architecture Work artifacts with the emerging Architecture Work Registry model.

3. Pattern Operations

Refined Pattern

Architecture Work Registry

Description:

Architecture Work becomes the authoritative source of architectural change while AEM becomes a generated architectural dashboard.

Candidate Signal: Regenerated Artifacts Should Not Own Planning State

Insight:

Information repeatedly lost through artifact regeneration should be persisted in authoritative source artifacts rather than generated views.

Candidate Signal: Governance Artifacts Prefer Derived State

Insight:

Governance outputs should summarize architecture state rather than become the source of truth themselves.

4. Structural Changes

Knowledge Layer Evolution

Introduced:

text Architecture Work Registry ↓ AEM ↓ AID ↓ Alignment

Frontmatter Evolution

Added support for:

  • initiative grouping
  • lifecycle classification
  • work correlation
  • architecture backlog ownership

5. System Evolution

New Architecture Work Producers

Introduced:

text Conversation ↓ Architecture Work Discovery ↓ Architecture Work Vision ↓ Architecture Work Alignment ↓ Architecture Work

Governance Evolution

Architecture Work elevated from supporting artifact to authoritative governance planning layer.

Lifecycle Evolution

Architecture Work now supports:

  • new
  • active
  • completed
  • superseded

classification across regeneration cycles.

6. Intent & Direction

Architecture Work Registry

Establish a persistent architecture backlog capable of receiving work from:

  • conversations
  • discovery findings
  • vision artifacts
  • alignment findings

Future Direction

Potential future integration with:

  • GitHub Projects
  • GitHub Issues
  • Jira
  • Azure Boards

while maintaining Architecture Work as the governance-centric architectural planning layer.

7. Roadmap Decisions

Priority Order Accepted

  1. Discovery → Architecture Work
  2. Vision → Architecture Work
  3. Alignment → Architecture Work

Deferred:

  • GitHub/Jira synchronization
  • AEM delta extraction
  • Governance review extraction

Reason:

Validate Architecture Work Registry operating model before introducing additional producers.

8. Open Questions

  • Should Architecture Work gain stable work identifiers beyond generated IDs?
  • Should initiatives become first-class artifacts?
  • How should external backlog systems synchronize with Architecture Work?
  • Should completed Architecture Work automatically influence AEM lifecycle classification?

9. Architecture Work Classification

Category:

  • governance

Lifecycle State:

  • active

Related Work:

  • none currently identified

Initiative:

  • Architecture Work Registry

Classification Rationale

The capability is beyond initial proposal and is actively being operationalized through:

  • template evolution
  • ingestion workflow creation
  • governance model alignment

Implementation is not yet fully complete, therefore classification remains:

text active

rather than:

text completed