Decision memory vs ADR tools

The short answer

If your team is engineers writing architecture decisions that should live next to the code, an ADR workflow in Git is the right default, and a command-line tool such as adr-tools or Log4brains makes it easier. If the decisions you keep losing are about pricing, hiring, scope or go-to-market, and they are made in chat and meetings, a decision memory tool captures them without a repository.

What the ADR tools do

• adr-tools is a set of command-line scripts that create numbered Markdown ADR files in a repository and mark older records as superseded. It stays out of the way and is easy to adopt in a codebase.
• Log4brains works from the same Markdown ADR files and adds a command-line tool and a generated static site for browsing and searching them.

Both are open-source projects. Check each repository's recent activity before you adopt one.

Where they differ

Who writes decisions

ADR tools: engineers, through a terminal or pull request. Decision memory: anyone on the team, by typing, speaking or pasting a screenshot.

Where decisions live

ADR tools: Markdown files in the repository. Decision memory: a shared decision space outside any codebase, so product and business decisions sit alongside technical ones.

Outcomes

ADR tools record status changes such as accepted, superseded or deprecated. Decision memory also records what actually happened after the decision, and whether the reasoning held, with review reminders.

Finding the reasoning

ADR tools: browse files or the generated site. Decision memory: search, plus a question such as "why did we decide this?" answered only from recorded decisions.

Cost of keeping it up to date

ADR tools rely on engineers remembering to write and link records. Decision memory structures each entry and proposes links to related or contradicting decisions as it is captured.

Choose an ADR tool if

• Your decisions are architectural, and they should be reviewed in pull requests like code.
• You want records versioned in the repository, with no separate system.
• Everyone who writes decisions is comfortable in Git and the terminal.

Choose Cadenzova Decisions if

• Non-engineers make decisions that the team later needs to explain: pricing, hiring, scope, partnerships.
• Decisions get made in meetings and chat, and nobody writes the ADR afterwards.
• You want to know which decisions worked out, not only which ones were recorded.

Some teams use both: ADRs for code-level architecture, and a decision memory space for the decisions around it. Cadenzova Decisions has a free plan, and API keys on paid plans if you want to push entries from scripts.