adr-relationships

ADR Relationship Management

Provides logic for domain analysis, conflict detection, and relationship tracking in Architecture Decision Records.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when...	Use blueprint-adr-validate instead when...
You need domain tagging logic for grouping related ADRs	You're running a one-shot ADR validation report
You need conflict detection between ADRs in the same domain	You're auditing all ADRs before a release
You need bidirectional relationship validation between ADRs	Use blueprint-adr-list instead when you only need a flat ADR index
You're authoring a new ADR and want to find related decisions	Use blueprint-derive-plans instead when generating ADRs from existing code

Core Capabilities

1. Domain Analysis: Scope ADRs by domain tag to find related decisions
2. Conflict Detection: Surface potential conflicts in same domain
3. Relationship Validation: Ensure bidirectional consistency
4. Orphan Detection: Find ADRs with broken references

Standard Domains

Domain	Covers
state-management	Redux, Zustand, MobX, Context, signals
data-layer	Database choice, ORM, caching strategies
api-design	REST, GraphQL, tRPC, versioning
authentication	Auth providers, session handling, tokens
testing	Test frameworks, strategies, coverage
deployment	CI/CD, containers, serverless, hosting
frontend-framework	React, Vue, Svelte, Angular
styling	Tailwind, CSS-in-JS, SCSS, design tokens
build-tooling	Bundlers, compilers, dev servers
monitoring	Logging, metrics, error tracking

Frontmatter Format

---
date: 2026-01-15
status: Accepted | Superseded | Deprecated | Proposed
domain: state-management
supersedes: ADR-0003
superseded_by: ADR-0012    # Set when superseded
extends: ADR-0005
related:
  - ADR-0002
  - ADR-0007
---

Conflict Detection Logic

Pre-Creation Analysis

When creating a new ADR with a domain:

1. Scan docs/adrs/*.md for matching domain: field
2. For each match with status "Accepted", extract:
   • ADR number and title
   • Key decision outcome
3. Calculate conflict score

Conflict Scoring

Indicator	Weight	Description
Same domain	+0.3	Both decisions in same domain
Both "Accepted"	+0.2	Neither has been superseded
Opposite outcomes	+0.4	Decisions recommend different solutions
Time gap > 6 months	+0.1	Older decision may be stale

Threshold: Score >= 0.7 indicates potential conflict requiring user decision.

Relationship Types

Relationship	When to Use	Example
supersedes	New decision replaces old	"Use Zustand" supersedes "Use Redux"
extends	New decision builds on old	"Add persistence" extends "Use Zustand"
related	Decisions are connected	"Use TypeScript" related to "Use Vite"

Domain Inference

Map discussion topics to domains:

Topic Keywords	Inferred Domain
Redux, Zustand, MobX, useState, signals	state-management
Prisma, Drizzle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, ORM	data-layer
REST, GraphQL, tRPC, OpenAPI, endpoints	api-design
OAuth, JWT, auth0, session, tokens	authentication
Vitest, Jest, Playwright, Cypress, coverage	testing
Tailwind, styled-components, CSS modules	styling
React, Vue, Svelte, Next.js, Nuxt	frontend-framework
Vite, Webpack, esbuild, turbopack	build-tooling
Docker, Kubernetes, Vercel, serverless	deployment
Sentry, DataDog, logging, metrics	monitoring

Validation Rules

Reference Integrity

Check	Validation
supersedes target exists	ADR file must exist
supersedes target status	Must be "Superseded" with superseded_by set
extends target exists	ADR file must exist
extends target not superseded	Warning if extending outdated decision
related targets exist	All referenced ADRs must exist
No self-reference	ADR cannot reference itself
No circular supersedes	A->B->A is invalid

Bidirectional Consistency

When ADR-A supersedes ADR-B:

• ADR-A: supersedes: ADR-B
• ADR-B: superseded_by: ADR-A, status: Superseded

Commands

Find ADRs by domain

grep -l "^domain: state-management" docs/adrs/*.md

Extract ADR metadata

for f in docs/adrs/*.md; do
  echo "=== $f ==="
  head -20 "$f" | grep -E "^(date|status|domain|supersedes|extends|related):"
done

Find potential conflicts

# Count Accepted ADRs per domain
grep -h "^domain:" docs/adrs/*.md | sort | uniq -c | while read count domain; do
  if [ "$count" -gt 1 ]; then
    echo "Potential conflict in $domain: $count Accepted ADRs"
  fi
done

Validate references

# Check all supersedes references
grep -h "^supersedes: ADR-" docs/adrs/*.md | cut -d' ' -f2 | while read ref; do
  num="${ref#ADR-}"
  ls docs/adrs/*-"$num"-*.md 2>/dev/null || echo "Missing: $ref"
done

Quick Reference

Operation	Pattern
Find by domain	grep -l "^domain: X" docs/adrs/*.md
List all domains	grep -h "^domain:" docs/adrs/*.md | sort -u
Find superseded	grep -l "^status: Superseded" docs/adrs/*.md
Check references	Parse frontmatter, verify targets exist
Detect conflicts	Multiple Accepted in same domain

Integration Points

• /blueprint:derive-plans: Pre-creation conflict analysis
• /blueprint:adr-validate: Full validation report
• /blueprint:status: ADR health summary
• document-detection skill: Domain inference for auto-detected ADRs