Keep a lightweight decision log for a project or a person: one dated line per decision with the choice, the reason, the alternatives, who decided, and a revisit trigger, in a single Markdown file that is grepped rather than browsed, so that why did we do that has an answer six months later. Lighter than an ADR; use for product, process, and scope decisions that do not warrant one. Use when a decision is made in chat or a meeting, when the same debate keeps recurring, or when onboarding someone…
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
An ADR is for architecture; most decisions are smaller (we will not support IE; the sprint is two weeks; the API uses cursor pagination; the thesis excludes mobile). They still get relitigated when nobody wrote them down. A decision log is the cheapest record that stops that: one file, one line per decision, appended and never rewritten.
## The file
`DECISIONS.md` at the project root (or `docs/DECISIONS.md`; match the repo), newest at the bottom so git blame and diffs stay readable:
```markdown
# Decision log
Format: date | decision | reason | alternatives | who | revisit when
- 2026-09-21 | Cursor pagination on all list endpoints | offset breaks under concurrent writes; clients already handle cursors | offset+limit; keyset only for large tables | API guild (A, B) | if a client cannot support cursors
- 2026-09-21 | Thesis scope excludes mobile clients | no access to a device lab; desktop covers 80% of sessions | include with emulators | K with supervisor | if the device lab opens before December
```
One line, under 200 words, no nested lists. Long reasoning links to a doc, an ADR, a ticket, or a meeting record.
## When to add a line
…
The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260921.3aa23eb, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_ivxrluklmfex2kig
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=khaledsaeed18/dotclaude/decision-log
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/17c62fb5f4ed5051384dc1d6d9fba8e4ee0bbf6cf0692964fa315ee491d52c8c
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