Observations
Discrepancies a reader needs to know about before trusting one of our artifacts — between two client sources, between a source and what we drew from it, or inside a single source that contradicts itself.
An observation is not the same thing as the three registers that already exist, and the boundary matters because each one has a different obligation attached:
| Register | What it does | Obligation |
|---|---|---|
| Recommendations | Argues a position on the client's architecture | Names the concern, cites it, says what to do instead |
| Decision log | Records a choice we made and what lost | Supersede, never delete |
| Open questions | Tracks what needs client decision or validation | Carries an owner and a by-when |
| Observations | Records where our artifact takes a side, or where the material disagrees with itself | Says so out loud before the artifact is presented |
The test is whether somebody could read one of our diagrams or pages, believe it, and be wrong — not because we made a mistake, but because the underlying material does not agree with itself and we had to pick. Where an observation implies a position, the position lives in a recommendation and this page links to it.
An observation also records how we read a verbal ask, where our reading is what the work is aimed at and nobody else can check it against a document. Those carry the same obligation, plus one more: say whose words are being paraphrased, and confirm the reading with them before acting on it.
Register
| # | Observation | Artifact affected | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| O1 | The MVP architecture diagram takes the ADS's side of an unresolved fork, in three places | MVP architecture diagram (Lucid) | R5.1 · OQ 19 |
| O2 | The customer's identity stops at the new tier — the walkthrough for the two labelled connectors | MVP architecture diagram (Lucid) | R1.1 · R1.2 |
| O3 | "Enterprise ID and entitlement" is three problems wearing one name — our reading of the Chief Architect's ask | Recommendations theme R1 · Sept 23 readout | R1.1 · R1.2 · R5.2 · OQ 41–43 |
| O4 | The client's target architecture draft (v2) against all 22 recommendations — three adopted, seven half-adopted, five contradicted, three made moot, four unaddressed | Recommendations — all six themes | Target architecture draft · OQ 44–50 |