Why MANTRA exists
Architecture decisions are too important to leave unstructured. MANTRA brings constitutional law to decision governance.
The problem
Engineering teams make architecture decisions every day. Most of these decisions get lost in Slack threads, meeting notes, or someone's memory. When new engineers join, they don't know why the system was built a certain way.
Architecture Decision Records (ADR) are a step in the right direction, but most ADR implementations are ad-hoc — inconsistent format, no validation, not searchable by AI, and no enforcement.
MANTRA takes a radical approach: architecture decisions are treated as constitutional law. Immutable, structured, and automatically enforceable.
Four principles
Foundations that cannot be compromised.
Human Authority
AI has ZERO approval authority. Only humans can create, approve, and evolve architecture decisions. AI helps with drafting and retrieval, not decision-making.
Immutability
Once made, decisions cannot be modified or deleted. Evolution only through supersedes — a new version replacing the old one, with full audit trail.
Ownership
Every decision has a clear created_by. No anonymous decisions. Accountability starts with who made the decision.
Standard Format
All decisions follow the same format: domain, aspect, scope, blast_radius, constraints, invariants. Consistency enables automation and retrieval.