Use the decision guides
Learn the shared shape behind an AI-native org's database-selection, infrastructure-selection, and model-selection guides - a default, a decision tree, and an ADR-gated deviation rule - and walk a real workload to a justified, recorded choice.
Units5
Duration26 min
Levelbeginner
By the end of this module, you'll be able to:
- Explain the three-layer guidance model from ADR-0021 - selection, radar, domain - and where the decision guides sit in it.
- State the shared shape every decision guide follows: a default, a walkable decision tree, and a deviation rule gated on a measured need and an ADR.
- Walk the database-selection and infrastructure-selection decision trees for a real workload to the guide's prescribed answer.
- Explain the model-selection guide's "most capable first, optimize down with evidence" posture and when escalating or descending a tier needs an eval or an ADR.
- Recognize when a choice is the ratified default and needs nothing recorded, versus when it is a deviation that must cite a measured ceiling in an ADR.
Prerequisites
- Completion of "Inherit the project baseline", or familiarity with the reuse-first / discover-before-generate posture.
- Basic familiarity with the technology radar's Adopt/Trial/Assess/Hold rings is helpful but not required.
Units
- 01Introduction4 min
- 02How decision guides work7 min
- 03Walk a decision guide8 min
- 04Knowledge check4 min
- 05Summary3 min
Related
- Navigate the patterns catalog Find the canonical answer to "how does your org do X" in a patterns catalog, read an entry's five fixed sections without confusing the pointer for the policy, and run the discover-before-you-build loop so you start every new piece of work from a named artifact instead of a blank file.
- Reuse-first engineering Explain why AI-assisted development diverges without a counter-force, state the discover-before-generate hard rule and what enforces it, and justify a from-scratch decision the way ADR-0003 requires - as a reasoned exception, not a default.
- Apply a non-negotiable floor An AI-native org runs on a small floor every human and agent obeys. Study Cogitave's floor - its seven non-negotiable rules and what enforces each, from a commit-msg hook to policy-as-code - then apply a floor like it to your own first change.