Markdown Architectural Decision Records

"Markdown Architectural Decision Records" (MADR) [ˈmæɾɚ] – decisions that matter [ˈmæɾɚ].

For user documentation, please head to https://adr.github.io/madr/.

Quick start

• adr-template.md has all sections, with explanations about them.
• adr-template-minmal.md only contains mandatory sections, with explanations about them.
• adr-template-bare.md has all sections, which are empty (no explanations).
• adr-template-bare-minimal.md has the mandatory sections, without explanations.

Copy it into docs/decisions. For each ADR, copy the template to nnnn-title.md and adapt. Longer explanation: Head to https://adr.github.io/madr/#applying-madr-to-your-project.

Development hints

• MADR follows Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 and documents changes in a CHANGELOG.md following keep a changelog 1.0.0.
• Issues can be reported at https://github.com/adr/madr/issues.
• Suggestions can be contributed via pull requests. MADR offers pre-configured VS Code web environment at Gitpod.
• MADR uses markdownlint as Linter for Markdown files. Use markdownlint for checking for linting issues in VS Code.
• template/adr-template.md is mirrored to docs/decisions/adr-template. However, following YAML front matter is added to make it handled properly by the Just the Docs Jekyll Template.

  ---
  parent: Decisions
  nav_order: 100
  title: ADR Template
  ---

Branches

Branch	Meaning
gh-pages	Homepage showing the latest released version, rendered at https://adr.github.io/madr
develop	Latest developments, including homepage updates which should be published on a release. gh-pages should always be merged into this branch.
release/vY	Branch for latest release Y.x version of MADR. Introduced to fix #92

The branch name conventions follow the git flow model.

See also CONTRIBUTING.md.

How to start Jekyll locally

For rendering the docs directory, Jekyll is needed.

For local development, follow the Jekyll installation instructions. Installing the latest version of ruby followed by gem install bundler should be enough.

Afterwards, run

bundle install
jekyll serve --livereload

and go to http://localhost:4000/madr/ in your browser.

On Windows, using a dockerized environment is recommended:

docker run -p 4000:4000 --rm -v "C:\git-repositories\adr.github.io\madr\docs":/site bretfisher/jekyll-serve

In case you get errors regarding Gemfile.lock, just delete Gemfile.lock and rerun.

Updating just-the-docs

• Adapt docs/Gemfile to use newer just-the-docs version. Thereby check https://github.com/just-the-docs/just-the-docs-template/blob/main/Gemfile for versions.
• Delete docs/Gemfile.lock. Start bundle install.
• Check https://github.com/just-the-docs/just-the-docs/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md.
• Check https://just-the-docs.com/migration/.

Releasing a new version

1. Update the examples at docs/index.md and docs/examples.md.
2. Update the concrete decisions in docs/decisions/* with the new template.
3. Commit ("Update examples and decisions") and push. Possibly as pull request.
4. Adapt the version reference in template/0000-use-markdown-architectural-decision-records.md.
5. Update "template" files in docs/decisions:
   • Copy template/0000-use-markdown-architectural-decision-records.md to docs/decisions/0000-use-markdown-architectural-decision-records.md.
   • Adapt content of docs/decisions/adr-template.md based on template/adr-template.md. Thereby, ensure that the YAML front matter in docs/decisions/adr-template.md is kept.
6. Add link to docs/index.md at "Older versions" (for the homepage).
7. Copy .markdownlint.yml to template/.markdownlint.yml (and possibly to docs/.markdownlint.yml).
8. Update CHANGELOG.md.
9. Commit.
10. Update package.json and publish to npmjs using release-it (do not create a release on GitHub). This also does a commit.
11. Create GitHub release using github-release-from-changelog.
12. Merge develop into gh-pages

License

This work is dual-licensed under MIT and CC0. You can choose between one of them if you use this work.

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR CC0-1.0