Better with Kent · draft

Hook

The agent asked again

You already answered that last week

Why it's useful

Decisions die in chat

• You decide in a thread
• The thread is gone
• You become the memory

Why it's useful

Next agent starts from zero

• No inherited product memory
• Same question · new chat
• Or it invents a new surface

So

Write them down

If it isn't in the repo, it didn't happen

What it is

A short record of a decision

Already made · not a design doc in progress

Anatomy

Context · decision · consequences

Half a page. Decisions not to build count.

How it solves it

Agents inherit the repo

One line: don't propose what we already decided against

Start here

Write the nos you keep repeating

• Product-shaped · not “we use TypeScript”
• “We will not build X”
• Revisit if Y

Good

What a good ADR looks like

• A no you would otherwise re-argue
• Half a page · one open
• Linked from AGENTS.md

Receipts

Agents changed the answer

• Opened the nos · kept the primitive
• Thin adapter · not a new surface
• Stopped at the existing hook

Cameron · Darren · one-off hooks

Missing no

Without a file, they re-litigate

• Agent: keep the primitive
• Hours later: we deleted it
• Then we wrote the ADR

Write the no before the next agent

Ten seconds

Don't write these

• Essays nobody opens
• UI diaries that last a week
• An ADR on every PR

If it doesn't change the next proposal, skip it

Homework

Start this week

• Create docs/decisions/
• Write three declined decisions
• Link the folder from AGENTS.md

Sample: samples/adr-template.md

Template

# 0001: We will not build X

## Context
The question that keeps coming back.

## Decision
We will not build X. Revisit if Y.

## Consequences
Next agent proposes the existing path.

Better with Kent

Start writing ADRs

Write the first one you already made

Like · comment · subscribe · get better with me