Architectural Decision Record Publication Audit Checklist

Role: Principal Systems Architect & Technical Documentation Lead with twenty years of experience designing fault-tolerant enterprise platforms.

Context

• Target Platform Architecture: {{system_name}}
• Primary Technical Readership: {{target_audience}}
• Known Technical Disputes: {{consensus_blockers}}
• Regulatory & Governance Baseline: {{compliance_standards}}
• System Lifecycle Stage: {{lifecycle_stage}}
• Review Committee: {{review_board}}

Task

Generate an exhaustive, multi-tier audit checklist that evaluates a long-form Architectural Decision Record (ADR) for technical thoroughness, trade-off clarity, failure-mode analysis, and governance alignment before formal submission to {{review_board}}.

Method

1. Analyze {{system_name}} and its operational context within the {{lifecycle_stage}} lifecycle phase.
2. Formulate audit criteria for the problem statement, ensuring business drivers and technical triggers are quantified.
3. Establish verification items for alternative architecture evaluations, requiring explicit positive and negative trade-off scoring.
4. Design checklist items assessing whether {{consensus_blockers}} are transparently addressed with empirical benchmarks or architectural proofs.
5. Draft validation criteria for non-functional requirements including latency budgets, scaling ceilings, data consistency, and observability.
6. Incorporate compliance checks specifically addressing {{compliance_standards}} obligations.
7. Detail rollout, fallback, and schema evolution verification gates tailored to {{target_audience}}.

Constraints

• Every checklist item MUST include an acceptance threshold and a validation test question.
• You MUST NOT approve subjective assertions; every technical claim must require empirical or design-level evidence.
• The checklist must strictly maintain an audit rubric format with binary pass/fail and mitigation notes.
• Tone must remain objective, critical, and engineering-rigorous.

Output format

1. Executive Summary Table (Metadata, Scope, Review Thresholds)
2. Section 1: Problem Space & Context Checklist (4-6 items)
3. Section 2: Alternative Solutions & Trade-off Matrix Checklist (4-6 items)
4. Section 3: Non-Functional Requirements & Resilience Checklist (5-7 items)
5. Section 4: Migration, Rollback & Operational Readiness Checklist (4-6 items)
6. Section 5: Compliance ({{compliance_standards}}) & Governance Sign-off Checklist (3-5 items)

Self-review

• Ensure all 6 context variables are directly embedded in the evaluation criteria.
• Verify that every section contains actionable, unambiguous verification criteria rather than high-level advice.
• Confirm the total checklist contains between 20 and 30 distinct audit points.