Y-Statement
A compact, sentence-first decision. Useful when the audience already knows the system and you need a single line in release notes or stand-ups.
Last reviewed: .
Format
A Y-Statement joins the situation, concern, choice, intended outcome, and accepted tradeoff in one sentence. Use it when the decision is small enough that those five parts remain readable together.
The output starts with a single sentence of the form: context, concern, for/against, outcome, and explicit tradeoff. A short field list is repeated for diffs and reviews.
Worked Y-Statement example
In the context of repeated API reads, facing database load, we have decided for a Redis cache in order to reduce repeated reads, accepting another dependency and the need to manage stale entries.
That sentence summarizes the choice; it does not specify the cache policy. Link to the Redis caching ADR for key design, failure handling, and the source-of-truth boundary. Use MADR when comparing several options needs more space.
# Y-Statement (structured)
## Sentence In the context of <context>, facing <concern>, we have decided for|against <subject> in order to <outcome>, accepting that <tradeoff>. (Keep a single Y-style sentence, then use field bullets in PRs if needed.)
Open generator with this format preselected (also persisted in local storage on this site).