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Architecture Reviews

Maintainable technology projects require handoffs between developers, and with new teammates comes fresh perspectives. Building a transparent and remote-friendly workplace is a great start to assist in knowledge transfer, as well as keeping projects as simple and obvious as possible and documenting key decisions.

Simplicity

We’ve done two projects exploring different aspects of simplicity — first, the DATA Act Pilot: Simplicity is Key (2016) project explored the ideas of:

  • Building for a least common denominator (CSVs) gave the project reach (more users could participate) and reduced code complexity.
  • Pulling out validation rules into a separate, easy-to-modify format made the product flexible and simple to maintain.

The second explores the idea of simplifying acquisitions in Micro-purchase: Do one thing well (2016) by using code boundaries in projects to define lines between micro-purchases of developer time.

Documenting key decisions

Some 18F projects have found success using Architecture Decision Records to capture key decisions and the context to which they were made, with the goal of allowing future project developers to know if a decision should be revisited or not. The decision records are typically stored in the repository alongside the code, using this template. For example: