Decision document

Turn ambiguity into a decision that can be understood, executed, reviewed, and superseded.

Choose a mode

• Fast record: context already contains the decision and rationale; write the record.
• Facilitation: important inputs are missing or stakeholders are stuck.
• Research comparison: evidence must be gathered before choosing.
• Experiment to decide: a bounded test has positive expected value of information.
• Audit: evaluate an existing decision record or a decision that is not holding.

Classify the decision as reversible, costly to reverse, or effectively irreversible. This changes the depth and evidence burden; reversibility is not an automatic tiebreaker.

Workflow

1. Extract the decision, owner, deadline, status quo, options, constraints, decision drivers, and known evidence from context.
2. If a blocking input is missing, ask one focused question at a time. Do not force an interview when the record is already supportable.
3. Include the status quo when it is a real option. Allow parallel or phased choices when dependencies, capacity, and order make them genuinely distinct—not as an escape from choosing.
4. Evaluate options against the agreed drivers. Use weights only when they clarify the tradeoff; show sensitivity when small weight changes reverse the result.
5. Distinguish facts, estimates, assumptions, preferences, and unknowns. Research time-sensitive claims from primary sources when authorized.
6. If a short experiment could resolve a pivotal uncertainty, specify hypothesis, cost, duration, success rule, and the decision each outcome triggers. Otherwise decide with current evidence.
7. Recommend one option or sequence. State confidence, strongest counterargument, consequences, and what would cause reconsideration.
8. Name the first action, owner, due date, review trigger, and how this record supersedes or is superseded by later decisions.

Output contract

Return a concise decision record with:

• title, date, status, owner, participants;
• decision statement and deadline;
• context, constraints, and decision drivers;
• evidence and assumptions;
• options, including status quo where relevant;
• comparison and strongest argument for/against each;
• decision, confidence, and rationale;
• consequences and what is being given up;
• first action, owner, due date;
• review/expiry trigger and supersession links;
• unresolved risks or dissent.

Offer to save it only when the user requested a file or the workspace convention clearly supports one.

Verify

• The record states one executable decision or explicit sequence.
• The recommendation follows the stated drivers and evidence.
• Material claims are sourced, measured, or labeled as assumptions.
• Reversibility, implementation cost, and downside are explicit.
• An experiment is used only when its result can change the decision.
• Owner, first action, due date, and review trigger are present.
• Dissent and the strongest counterargument are represented fairly.