This section documents recurring decisions that shape a website’s structure over time.
Each decision represents a tradeoff between competing constraints rather than a choice between right and wrong.
Decisions here are treated as durable commitments.
Once made, they influence maintenance load, change velocity, and failure modes long after initial implementation.
This section does not provide guidance or prescriptions.
It isolates decisions so their consequences can be examined without persuasion or recommendation.
Scope
Decisions covers choices that affect the internal behavior of a site:
how it changes, how it breaks, and how effort accumulates.
These are architectural and operational decisions, not stylistic or tactical ones.
What is included:
- Structural decisions with long-term impact
- Tradeoffs that persist beyond launch
- Decisions that constrain future options
What is excluded:
- Tool selection or vendor comparison
- Implementation instructions or setup steps
- Advice framed as optimization or improvement
Relationship to Foundations and Website Types
Foundations describe universal constraints.
Website Types describe stable structural patterns.
Decisions operate between them.
They explain how specific choices push a site toward or away from certain behaviors within a given type.
This section does not restate foundational constraints or redefine website types.
It assumes both are already understood.
Decisions Covered
Each decision is documented independently.
Pages describe the decision space, the opposing forces involved, and the costs implied by each direction.
- Content Structure
- Navigation Model
- Change Surface Area
- Runtime Dependence
- Ownership Boundaries
- Extensibility
Each page isolates one decision.
Interactions between decisions are acknowledged but not resolved here.