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ADR-0085: Every ruling is recoverable, logged, and fed back into design

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The record

Status: Accepted (Mohamed, 2026-10-09 — verbatim; see Provenance) · Date: 2026-10-09

Context

2026-10-09's in-session walkthrough of the outstanding register produced six rulings — and the first four were recorded in infra/README.md and a plans/ file, NOT in the ADR register. A ruling in a README is not recoverable as a ruling: it does not sync to the graph, the drift gate never sees it, and no future design session can query it. Mohamed named the rule while this was happening.

Decision (Mohamed, verbatim)

"the ruling from past must be recoverable and logged an used for feedback and to inform teh design and architecture"

Every ruling lands in the ADR register (docs/adr + wiki decisions page + graph, per ADR-0046's three homes) the same turn it is made — never only in a README, plan, or chat. The register is the feedback surface: design and architecture work reads it before proposing.

Alternatives rejected

• READMEs/plans as the ruling record (what this session did first): invisible to the graph and the drift gate — the exact failure this ADR exists to close.

Consequences

• ADR-0080..0084 were minted retroactively this same day to bring the 2026-10-09 rulings into the register; the README/plan notes remain as operational pointers only.
• Any future ruling recorded outside the register is a defect to correct on sight (RUL-006 applies to the record, not just the code).

Provenance

Mohamed, 2026-10-09, in the Kimi Code session, mid-walkthrough, after the benchmark-harness ruling surfaced that earlier rulings had no recoverable home.

Related ADRs

• Also mentioned: ADR-0046, ADR-0080

Rulings cited

• RUL-006: RUL-006 — Fix on sight — seeing a defect is fixing it, automatically

Specs cited

None (or no spec page exists for the ones named).