Skip to content

Domain Docs

How the engineering skills should consume this repo's domain documentation when exploring the codebase.

Before exploring, read these

  • CONTEXT.md at the repo root, or
  • CONTEXT-MAP.md at the repo root if it exists — it points at one CONTEXT.md per context. Read each one relevant to the topic.
  • docs/adr/ — read ADRs that touch the area you're about to work in. In multi-context repos, also check src/<context>/docs/adr/ for context-scoped decisions. This repo's ADRs are indexed from the one-liners in CONTEXT.md and the descriptive table in docs/architecture/overview.md.
  • docs/architecture/ — topic docs (data-layer, ingestion-pipeline, parser, classification, money, ui, security, tooling) with diagrams. Read the one matching the area you're about to touch.

If any of these files don't exist, proceed silently. Don't flag their absence; don't suggest creating them upfront. The /domain-modeling skill (reached via /grill-with-docs and /improve-codebase-architecture) creates them lazily when terms or decisions actually get resolved.

File structure

Single-context repo (most repos):

/
├── CONTEXT.md
├── docs/adr/
│   ├── 0001-event-sourced-orders.md
│   └── 0002-postgres-for-write-model.md
└── src/

Multi-context repo (presence of CONTEXT-MAP.md at the root):

/
├── CONTEXT-MAP.md
├── docs/adr/                          ← system-wide decisions
└── src/
    ├── ordering/
    │   ├── CONTEXT.md
    │   └── docs/adr/                  ← context-specific decisions
    └── billing/
        ├── CONTEXT.md
        └── docs/adr/

Use the glossary's vocabulary

When your output names a domain concept (in an issue title, a refactor proposal, a hypothesis, a test name), use the term as defined in CONTEXT.md. Don't drift to synonyms the glossary explicitly avoids.

If the concept you need isn't in the glossary yet, that's a signal — either you're inventing language the project doesn't use (reconsider) or there's a real gap (note it for /domain-modeling).

Flag ADR conflicts

If your output contradicts an existing ADR, surface it explicitly rather than silently overriding:

Contradicts ADR-0007 (category override module) — but worth reopening because…

Write discipline

Upkeep triggers live in AGENTS.md §Upkeep rules; ownership (which file owns which meaning), budgets, and where new things go are defined in context-map.md. Follow those; this file only adds skill-facing conventions:

  • New decision → numbered ADR + its one-line entries in CONTEXT.md and the overview table.
  • New domain term → glossary in CONTEXT.md.