arc42.org-site VS architecture-decision

There a various standards for documenting software architecture, like arc42 or C4. While useful and somewhat well-known (there is certainly a correlation here), here architecture documentation can be further simplified, particularly due to the self-similarity of project and component. Following is a small template, that can also serve as a project's and component's README:

I've been using https://structurizr.com/ to automatically generate C4 diagrams from a model (rather than drawing them by hand). It works well with the approach for written documentation as proposed in https://arc42.org/. It's very easy to embed a C4 diagram into a markdown document.

The result is a set of documents and diagrams under version control that can be rendered using the structurizr documentation server (for interactive diagrams and indexed search).

I also use https://d2lang.com/ for declarative diagrams in addition to C4, e.g., sequence diagrams and https://adr.github.io/ for architectural decision records. These are also well integrated into structurizr.

My general approach to documentation is a "software guidebook" (free e-book link) or arc42 ... complemented with diagrams and architecture decision records where necessary.

In addition to a small number of diagrams, I'd recommend something like arc42 or my "software guidebook" (link for a free copy of my book describing this), plus some architecture decision records.

Arc42 may give some inspiration https://arc42.org/

If you need more structure than ADRs then https://arc42.org is super useful.

There are plenty of good resources out there for learning modeling languages and architectural documentation structures. For more lightweight methods, I'd recommend checking out resources like Simon Brown's C4 model for visualizing software architecture, Martin Fowler's UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language, Scott Ambler's Agile Modeling site, and the arc42 template for architectural documentation.

As you need to, you can get into topics like different modeling languages or documentation template libraries. These are going to be highly dependent on your organization, though, as different organizations have different standards for what and how to document design decisions. Personally, I've found that the arc42 documentation template plus the C4 modeling language plus the UML modeling language (see UML as sketch and UML as notes for more on lightweight UML) for the most detailed models (which are rarely needed outside of the most complex parts of a system) tends to be a good, agile, lightweight model for the kinds of things to think about when it comes to creating design documentation.

We've started using Arc42 and C4 model & PlantUML for diagrams. Working out well so far.

arc42 - arc42

Link is https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision...

Hi, article author here, we supplement our architecture diagrams with Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision... in the ADR we capture:

If anyone wants to see Polar in action on a GitHub issue, I'm experimenting with Polar on my Architecture Decision Record repo:

https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision...

(I'm on the fence about the value of Polar for this kind of issue... see what you think)

Architecture Decision Records are a big help for teamwork. I have a bunch of notes and examples here, including from my time at ThoughtWorks with technology radars.

https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision...

The article mentions Architectural Design Records (ADR) which can be included as a folder in the git repo for the project, as a means of documenting the historical decisions that led to the project's current structure. Some of that seems overly complex or formalized (i.e. reinventing UML and all the problems that came with it), but having that history in some kind of constant format would likely help overcome any novelty issues and help people grasp what's going on. The simplest format discussed seems the best for most cases:

https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/architecture-decision...