Technical Debt Records: The Missing Piece in your Software Architecture Documentation

Technical debt - while often seen as a necessary evil - can silently undermine software quality, team productivity and long-term agility.

To proactively manage this risk, Technical Debt Records (TDRs) provide a structured way to document and track known technical compromises.

Just as Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) help teams understand why architectural decisions were made, TDRs aim to make technical debt explicit: what was deferred, why, and what the impact is.

The concept of Technical Debt Records was introduced by Michael Stal in a Heise article (🇩🇪). It states that TDRs are particularly valuable in agile development teams in which the architecture is constantly being further developed.

A lean TDR format

I propose the following lean format for recording technical debt 👇

TDR-[ID]: [Short Title]

A short and descriptive title for the technical debt item. Use a unique ID (e.g., TDR-01).

• Status
  Current state of the debt. Suggested values: Open, Planned, In Progress, Resolved, Won't Fix.
• Description
  A concise explanation of the technical debt. What was done, what’s missing, or what needs improvement?
• Impact
  What are the potential consequences or risks of leaving it unresolved? (e.g., instability, poor scalability, increased maintenance)
• Possible Solutions
  Potential ways to address or refactor the debt. Doesn’t need to be final - just an idea or direction.
• Owner
  Person or team responsible for tracking or resolving this item.

📘 Where TDRs Belong in arc42 software architecture template

In the arc42 template, TDRs naturally fit into Section 11: Risks and technical debt.

This section is for known constraints, risks and trade-offs - making it the perfect place to keep a log of documented technical debt.

I am working on an software architecture documentation starter project that includes the key techniques and technologies for good software architecture documentation. I have also included records of technical debt in the starter project 👇

GitHub - bitsmuggler/arc42-c4-software-architecture-documentation-example: This example shows how you can use arc42 in combination with the C4 model and the Documentation as Code technique.

This example shows how you can use arc42 in combination with the C4 model and the Documentation as Code technique. - bitsmuggler/arc42-c4-software-architecture-documentation-example

GitHubbitsmuggler