architecture-design

Purpose

Guide the design of a system or feature from requirements to a documented architecture. Produces C4-model diagrams (Context → Container → Component), service boundary definitions, API contracts, data flow diagrams, failure mode analysis, and an ADR for the key decisions made. Works standalone or as the /abd-design agent in the ABD workflow.

Quick mode (/architecture-design --quick): for single-feature or small-scope designs. Skip Step 5 (C4 Level 3), make the Step 8 failure-mode table optional (include only externally-dependent paths), and keep Steps 1–2 to a single confirmation exchange.

Emit as you go: output each step's section immediately as you complete it rather than composing the whole document at the end. Step 10 assembles the already-emitted sections into the saved file. This keeps quality even across sections.

Instructions

Step 1 — Gather inputs

Ask the user for (or read from existing artifacts):

• What are we building? (description or link to requirements doc / Jira epic)
• What are the key constraints? (team size, existing systems to integrate with, cloud provider, language preference, compliance requirements)
• What is the expected scale? (users/day, requests/second, data volume)
• What is the timeline? (affects how complex a solution is appropriate)
• Are there existing systems this must integrate with or replace?

If docs/requirements/ exists, use Glob and Read to load relevant requirements documents.

Step 2 — Propose architecture style

Based on the inputs, recommend and justify one of these patterns. Explain the tradeoffs in the context of the stated constraints:

Ask the user to confirm the pattern before proceeding.

Step 3 — C4 Model — Level 1: System Context

Produce a Mermaid diagram showing the system in context:

• The system being built (center)
• External users/actors
• External systems it integrates with
• Data flows between them

C4Context
  title System Context — <System Name>
  Person(user, "End User", "Uses the system via web/mobile")
  System(system, "<System Name>", "The system being designed")
  System_Ext(auth, "Auth Provider", "OAuth2/OIDC — e.g. Auth0")
  System_Ext(email, "Email Service", "Transactional email — e.g. SendGrid")
  Rel(user, system, "Uses", "HTTPS")
  Rel(system, auth, "Authenticates via", "HTTPS/OIDC")
  Rel(system, email, "Sends email via", "HTTPS/API")

If C4 Mermaid syntax is not supported, use graph LR with clear labels.

Step 4 — C4 Model — Level 2: Container Diagram

Decompose the system into containers (deployable units):

• Web frontend (SPA, SSR, mobile app)
• API server(s)
• Background workers / queues
• Databases (type: relational, document, cache, search)
• Message broker (if event-driven)
• CDN / static assets

For each container specify: technology choice, responsibility, and communication protocol with other containers.

Step 5 — C4 Model — Level 3: Component Diagram (key containers only)

For the most complex container (usually the API server), decompose into components:

• Router / Controller layer
• Service / Use Case layer
• Repository / Data Access layer
• Domain Model
• External adapters (email, payment, auth)
• Shared utilities (logging, validation, config)

Step 6 — Data Design

• Identify the core entities and their relationships (ER diagram in Mermaid)
• Recommend database type for each store: relational (normalized, ACID), document (flexible schema), key-value (cache/session), time-series (metrics/events), search (full-text)
• Flag any PII/sensitive data and where encryption at rest is required
• Identify high-read vs high-write data and caching strategy

Step 7 — API Contract Sketch

For each major API surface, define:

• Protocol: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket, or event/message
• Key endpoints/operations (resource name, method, brief description)
• Authentication mechanism (JWT, API key, OAuth2 scopes)
• Pagination strategy (cursor vs offset)
• Error response format

Step 8 — Failure Mode Analysis

For each external dependency and critical path, define:

• What happens if this fails?
• Mitigation: retry with backoff, circuit breaker, graceful degradation, fallback, queue
• Recovery time objective (RTO) — how quickly must this recover?

Step 9 — Cross-Cutting Concerns

Address explicitly:

• Authentication & Authorization: where auth is enforced, which framework/library
• Observability: structured logging, distributed tracing (trace IDs), metrics, alerting
• Configuration: how env vars / secrets are managed per environment
• Deployment: container/serverless, CI/CD pipeline shape, blue/green vs rolling
• Testing strategy: unit (domain logic), integration (adapters), contract (API), E2E (critical flows)

Step 10 — Write Design Artifact

Use Write to save the full design to docs/architecture/<feature-or-system-name>-design.md.

If handoffs/designs/ exists (ABD workflow), also write a JSON artifact to handoffs/designs/{taskId}_design_{unixTimestamp}.json using the ABD envelope schema.

Offer to run /adr to capture the key architectural decisions as ADRs.

Output Format

The design document should contain all diagrams inline as Mermaid fenced code blocks, all tables, and a "Key Decisions" section summarising the choices made and why. End with "Open Questions" — any decisions that need stakeholder input before implementation begins.