adr-review

ADR Review

Review code changes against accepted Architecture Decision Records to detect violations, drift, and non-compliance.

When to use

Before merging a PR, after significant code changes, or as part of a periodic compliance check. Use this to ensure code changes respect the architectural decisions the team has agreed upon.

Steps

1. Get diff -- Run git diff main...HEAD --name-only (or the specified branch) to list changed files. Then run git diff main...HEAD to get the full diff content.

2. Find relevant ADRs -- For each changed file:

   • Grep the file for ADR references (ADR-\d+)
   • Grep docs/adr/ for ADRs that mention the changed file paths or modules
   • Call mcp__swarmdo__memory_search with the file path and change summary to find semantically related ADRs

3. Load ADR content -- Read each relevant ADR file. Focus on:

   • The Decision section (what was decided)
   • The Status (only enforce "accepted" ADRs)
   • The Consequences (expected constraints)

4. Check for violations -- Analyze each changed file against its relevant ADRs:

   • Does the code change contradict an accepted decision?
   • Does it use a technology/pattern that an ADR explicitly rejected?
   • Does it modify a module in a way the ADR's consequences warned against?
   • Is the code referencing a deprecated or superseded ADR?

5. Query relationship graph -- Call mcp__swarmdo__agentdb_causal-query to check if any referenced ADRs have been superseded. If so, flag that the code references an outdated decision.

6. Report -- Present findings as a compliance report:

   ## ADR Compliance Report
   
   ### Violations
   - [ ] <file>:<line> — violates ADR-NNN: <reason>
   
   ### Warnings
   - [!] <file> references superseded ADR-NNN (replaced by ADR-MMM)
   
   ### Compliant
   - [x] <file> — consistent with ADR-NNN
   
   ### Unlinked Changes
   - [?] <file> — no ADR coverage (consider creating one)
   

7. Suggest actions -- For each violation, suggest whether to update the code or propose a new ADR to supersede the violated one.