Use this table to see exactly which sections are required at your chosen documentation depth. Pick your column and fill in only the rows marked Yes.
| Section | Minimum | Recommended | Comprehensive |
|---|
| 0. Document Control | | | |
| Document metadata | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Change history | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Contributors & approvals | No | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose & scope | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1. Executive Summary | | | |
| Solution overview | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Business context & drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Strategic alignment & reuse | No | Yes | Yes |
| Scope (in/out) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Current state / As-Is | No | Yes | Yes |
| Key decisions & constraints | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Project details | No | Yes | Yes |
| Business criticality | No | Yes | Yes |
| 2. Stakeholders | | | |
| Stakeholder register | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Concerns matrix | No | Yes | Yes |
| Compliance & regulatory | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3.1 Logical View | | | |
| Architecture diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Component decomposition | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Design patterns | No | Yes | Yes |
| Service & capability mapping | No | No | Yes |
| Vendor lock-in assessment | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3.2 Integration & Data Flow | | | |
| Data flow diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Internal connectivity | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| External integrations | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| API & interface contracts | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3.3 Physical View | | | |
| Deployment diagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hosting & infrastructure | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Compute | No | Yes | Yes |
| User & admin access | No | Yes | Yes |
| Network connectivity | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Environments | No | Yes | Yes |
| End user compute & IoT | No | No | Yes |
| 3.4 Data View | | | |
| Data stores | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data classification | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data transfers | No | Yes | Yes |
| Data lifecycle | No | No | Yes |
| 3.5 Security View | | | |
| Business impact assessment | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Authentication | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Authorisation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption at rest | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secret management | No | Yes | Yes |
| Security monitoring | No | Yes | Yes |
| Threat model | No | No | Yes |
| Network security | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3.6 Scenarios | | | |
| Key use cases | No | Yes | Yes |
| Architecture decision records | No | Yes | Yes |
| 4. Quality Attributes | | | |
| Operational excellence | No | Yes | Yes |
| Reliability & resilience | No | Yes | Yes |
| Performance efficiency | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cost optimisation | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sustainability | No | Yes | Yes |
| Quality attribute tradeoffs | No | Yes | Yes |
| 5. Lifecycle | | | |
| CI/CD & development | No | Yes | Yes |
| Migration (if applicable) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Test strategy | No | Yes | Yes |
| Release management | No | Yes | Yes |
| Operations & support | No | Yes | Yes |
| Resourcing & skills | No | Yes | Yes |
| Service start | No | No | Yes |
| Maintainability | No | Yes | Yes |
| Decommissioning | No | Yes | Yes |
| Exit planning | No | Yes | Yes |
| 6. Decision Making | | | |
| Constraints | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Assumptions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Risks | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dependencies | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Issues | No | Yes | Yes |
| Technical debt register | No | Yes | Yes |
| Guardrail exceptions | No | Yes | Yes |
| Architectural decisions log | No | Yes | Yes |
| Compliance traceability | No | No | Yes |
| Approval sign-off | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 7. Appendices | | | |
| Glossary | No | Yes | Yes |
| Reference documents | No | Yes | Yes |
| Standards referenced | No | Yes | Yes |
| Compliance scoring | No | Yes | Yes |
- Choose your depth based on your project’s criticality and governance requirements
- Fill in only the “Yes” rows for your chosen depth
- Skip everything else — do not include empty sections
| Depth | When to Use | Approx. Time | Typical Gate |
|---|
| Minimum | Early-stage designs, proofs of concept, dev/test reviews | 15-30 min | Development review |
| Recommended | Production-bound designs, formal governance | 1-2 hours | Production approval |
| Comprehensive | Critical, regulated, or enterprise-scale systems | 1-2 days | Enterprise architecture review |
