How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, not just what?

Re:How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, n... by CGMthrowaway on Friday March 13, 2026 @03:58PM (#47369044)

Put the ADR in the PR as a requirement. Then automate extracting the decision info into an actual ADR.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, n... by zain__t on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:00PM (#47369062)

I am already working to automate the process

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, n... by CGMthrowaway on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:00PM (#47369073)

AI could even analyze the diff and predictively pre-populate the decision info, though that might be counterproductive in practice

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, n... by zain__t on Friday March 13, 2026 @04:02PM (#47369093)

surely "WhyLog" will overcome the developers problem soon

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How do you capture WHY engineering decisions were made, n... by 4b11b4 on Friday March 13, 2026 @05:18PM (#47370061)

But that's still after the decision was made... I guess it's still useful. But maybe that person didn't actually weigh a decision and tradeoffs when they made the change.

[ Parent | on HN ]