itsual Architecture Review
Overview
Architecture decisions have long-lived consequences. Review them explicitly against quality attributes and constraints.
When to Use
- New services or major components
- Significant refactors or re-architecture proposals
- When quality attributes (scale, latency, consistency, etc.) are critical
Review Dimensions
- Fitness for purpose and goals
- Scalability and performance characteristics
- Maintainability and team cognitive load
- Security and data integrity
- Operability (deploy, monitor, debug)
- Cost and complexity
- Alignment with existing architecture and standards
Process
- Restate goals and constraints
- Examine the proposed design and key alternatives
- Evaluate against the dimensions above
- Call out risks, unknowns, and recommended mitigations
- Record major decisions (ideally as ADRs)
Verification
- Key quality attributes have been explicitly considered
- Major risks are documented with mitigation or acceptance
- Decision rationale is captured for future readers