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Writing · Version 1.5.0 · Reviewed 2026-08-02

ADR Writer

Make the reader act on context capture and consequence articulation with evidence, explicit trade-offs, and a verification plan.

4 method steps 6 documented failure modes 5 diagnostic checks 7 quality gates

Writes decision records that capture context and consequences so future readers understand the reasoning.

₹99 one-time

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What this skill helps you do

  • Context capture
  • Consequence articulation
  • Alternative documentation

How ADR Writer works

You provide

Build definition, timings, and cache statistics

It inspects

Layer ordering and secret exposure for context capture

It decides

A consequence articulation change that keeps every gate intact

You verify

Per-stage duration and cache hit rate re-measured

What it checks first

ADR Writer writes decision records that capture context and consequences so future readers understand the reasoning. Use it when the work involves Context capture, Consequence articulation, Alternative documentation.

  1. Layer ordering relative to change frequency, which determines whether the cache is ever reused.
  2. Whether the build is reproducible, or depends on floating tags and network state at build time.
  3. Image provenance and base-image currency, since most container vulnerabilities come from the base.
  4. Whether secrets enter the build context or an intermediate layer, where they persist even if deleted later.
  5. The critical path of the pipeline, distinguished from total pipeline time.

Failure modes it recognizes

  • Copying the entire source before installing dependencies, invalidating the dependency cache on every commit.
  • A secret passed as a build argument and permanently embedded in image history.
  • A `latest` base tag making builds nondeterministic and silently changing runtime behavior.
  • Running as root because the image never declared a user, expanding container escape impact.
  • A cache key that includes a timestamp, so the cache never hits.
  • Parallel jobs sharing a mutable cache and corrupting each other intermittently.

Answers it will reject

  • Adding retries to a flaky pipeline step instead of fixing the nondeterminism, which triples the failure latency.
  • Building images in the same stage as tests, shipping test tooling and credentials to production.
  • Disabling a security scan to unblock a release without recording an exception and an expiry.
  • Optimizing total pipeline duration when the critical path is a single serial step.

Decision rules it applies

  • Order build layers from least to most frequently changed, and copy dependency manifests before source.
  • Use multi-stage builds so the runtime image contains only runtime artifacts.
  • Pin base images by digest for reproducibility and update them deliberately.
  • Never weaken a gate to increase speed; make the gate faster or move it, but keep the signal.

Evidence it asks for

  • Measure per-stage duration and cache hit rate to find where the pipeline actually spends time.
  • Scan the built image and compare findings against the base image to attribute ownership.
  • Verify no secret material exists in image history with a layer inspection.

The method inside

  1. Identify the reader decision before drafting
  2. Lead with the conclusion and strongest evidence
  3. Remove unsupported claims and background that does not change action
  4. Check traceability, ambiguity, and the explicit ask

Deliverables

  • Context capture revised draft
  • Consequence articulation source and logic check
  • Alternative documentation approval-ready version

Evidence requirements

  • Source analysis, facts, decisions, and approved claims
  • Named audience, decision, and desired action
  • Format, length, tone, and review constraints

Quality gates

  • Every material claim traces to supplied evidence or is labeled as a hypothesis.
  • The response follows the declared deliverable contract.
  • No execution, access, measurement, or verification is invented.
  • Secrets and personal data are redacted rather than repeated.
  • The user receives a concrete independent verification step.
  • The relevant failure modes in this domain were considered rather than only the reported symptom.
  • No listed anti-pattern was recommended as a solution.

Example task

Input

Write an ADR for our decision to use event-driven communication between two services.

Expected output

The value of an ADR is the context and the rejected alternatives, since the decision itself is visible in the code. Record the constraints that were true at the time and the consequences you accepted, so a future reader can tell whether they still hold...

Boundaries and compatibility

Ideal for

  • Context capture: produce a decision or artifact grounded in supplied evidence.
  • Consequence articulation: produce a decision or artifact grounded in supplied evidence.
  • Alternative documentation: produce a decision or artifact grounded in supplied evidence.

Out of scope

  • Inventing facts, quotations, or approvals
  • Hiding uncertainty or material bad news

Agent compatibility

  • GitHub Copilot custom agents
  • Claude Agent Skills / SKILL.md
  • Any instruction-following chat model

Tool policy: Advisory by default. No tools are assumed. If the host provides tools, use read-only evidence gathering unless the user explicitly approves a scoped write or execution action.