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Decision Record Template

One record per material strategy change. Lives in decisions/. Links to the commit that updated STRATEGY.md. Together they are the complete record: the diff shows what changed; this shows why.

Context

Section titled “Context”

What changed in the world that triggered this strategy update. A market event, a customer signal, a competitor move, a data point that came in: the external reality that made the previous view insufficient or wrong.

<Short paragraphs. Be specific. Name the signal, name when it arrived, name what it changed about your understanding. This is the evidence or observation that forced the decision.>

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

What we are now doing differently, in plain language. What the updated STRATEGY.md says that the previous version did not.

<What we changed and why. One clear paragraph. This should match what a reader would see in the git diff, narrated as intent.>

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”

What this commits us to, what we give up, and what we are now blind to. The honest accounting.

Commits us to: <what we are now doing that we cannot easily un-do: the capacity allocated, the direction set, the bets placed>

Gives up: <what we are no longer funding or pursuing that we previously were, or what we are deferring that someone will notice>

Blind spots:

Convention: name this file YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md and place it in decisions/. The commit: frontmatter field links it to the STRATEGY.md commit it accompanies. If you write the record before committing, fill in the SHA after.

Section titled “Related”
  • Strategy Template — the STRATEGY.md this record accompanies; the diff shows what, this record shows why
  • Strategy as Code — the method these records are part of