| name | decision-memo-writer |
| description | Produces structured decision records with rationale, alternatives considered, and consequences. Use when recording non-trivial decisions that future team members need to understand. |
Decision Memo Writer
Reference
- ID: S-ORG-02
- Category: Orchestration
- Inputs: decision context, alternatives, stakeholder positions
- Outputs: decision memo artifact → artifacts/decision-memos/
- Used by: Orchestrator Agent
- Tool scripts: ./tools/artifact/validate.sh
Purpose
Records non-trivial decisions with full rationale, alternatives evaluated, and anticipated consequences so that future team members can understand why a particular path was chosen without re-litigating the discussion.
Procedure
ID Convention
Use the format DM-{NNN} for decision memo IDs (e.g., DM-001, DM-002). For specialized memos, use prefixes:
REVIEW- for review memos (e.g., REVIEW-WEEKLY-2026-03-01)RETRO- for retrospective memos (e.g., RETRO-PRD-001)GROWTH- for growth experiment memos (e.g., GROWTH-001)CONV- for customer conversation logs (e.g., CONV-001)
Check artifacts/decision-memos/ for existing IDs to avoid collisions.
Steps
- Gather the decision context: what problem or question triggered this decision.
- List all alternatives considered, including the status-quo option.
- For each alternative, document pros, cons, risks, and estimated effort.
- Identify stakeholder positions and any dissenting opinions.
- State the chosen alternative and the primary rationale for selection.
- Document expected consequences (positive and negative) of the decision.
- Define revisit criteria — conditions under which this decision should be reconsidered.
- Write the memo in the standard template and save to
artifacts/decision-memos/.
- Validate the artifact using
./tools/artifact/validate.sh.
Quality Checklist
