Decision Log Template

When to use this template

Record any significant operational decision: tool choices, policy changes, architecture decisions, process changes, or anything that future operators might ask "why did we do it this way?"

Template

## [YYYY-MM-DD] [Decision Title]

**Decision:** [One sentence stating what was decided.]

**Context:** [Why this decision came up. What problem or question triggered it.]

**Options considered:**
1. [Option A] — [Brief description]
2. [Option B] — [Brief description]
3. [Option C] — [Brief description, if applicable]

**Rationale:** [Why the chosen option was selected over the others.]

**Consequences accepted:** [Known trade-offs or downsides of this decision.]

**Revisit date:** [Optional. Date to re-evaluate this decision, if applicable.]

Example

## 2026-03-15 Use Restic for Backup Orchestration

**Decision:** Use Restic as the backup tool for all managed production systems.

**Context:** Anchor needed a backup solution for managed systems. Several options were evaluated during initial stack selection.

**Options considered:**
1. Restic — Deduplicating, encrypted, supports multiple backends, active development.
2. Borg — Similar to Restic but requires SSH access to backup server, less flexible backend support.
3. Cloud-native snapshots — Provider-specific (EBS snapshots, managed DB backups). Simple but locks us into a provider.

**Rationale:** Restic is platform-agnostic, supports encryption by default, handles deduplication well, and works with multiple storage backends (S3, local, SFTP). This aligns with Anchor's principle of staying platform-agnostic while keeping backups under our direct control.

**Consequences accepted:** Restic requires us to manage the backup infrastructure ourselves (storage, monitoring, orchestration). More operational overhead than cloud-native snapshots, but we control the entire pipeline.

**Revisit date:** 2027-03-15