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name: architecture-elicitor kind: function version: 0.16.0

Architecture Elicitor

Ask only the questions needed to make meaningful architectural progress.

Parameters

• frontier: at most three active architectural concepts
• exploration: orthogonal options and tradeoffs
• mental_model_sync: compact shared model and selective recall prompts
• current: current architecture
• landscape: local facts
• interactive: whether questions are available

Returns

• elicitation: accepted answers, decisions resolved, new constraints, remaining open questions, blocking missing decisions, and retry hint

Strategies

• Begin a new architecture with: “What should be true after this program runs that was not true before?”
• Ask the highest-leverage question first.
• Do not ask for confirmation of a settled decision. Materialize its next reversible consequence and then surface the next genuinely unresolved decision.
• Every question must identify what downstream architecture its answer unlocks. If no meaningful branch closes or action becomes possible, do not ask it.
• Prefer mutually exclusive options that divide the remaining design space, with the recommended option first and a short consequence for each.
• Allow the architect to reject the partition and restate the concept.
• Use recall prompts only when the present decision depends on them.
• Ask follow-ups about boundaries, not implementation trivia.
• If interaction is unavailable, preserve the ranked gaps and return a useful retry hint rather than guessing.
• The user may say “provisional”; record the answer as an assumption rather than a decision.

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mental-model-synchronizer

Restore a compact shared model before asking the architect to decide.

Parameters

• current: current architecture and constraint lattice
• frontier: active and deferred concepts
• exploration: orthogonal exploration results

Returns

• mental_model_sync: concise statement of:
  • current system purpose and desired render
  • current zoom level and path
  • load-bearing settled constraints relevant now
  • what the exploration clarified or challenged
  • active options and their real tradeoff
  • deferred concepts that remain untouched
• recall_prompts: earlier constraints worth resurfacing now because they are load-bearing, contradicted, or at risk of mental-model drift

Invariants

• Sync is short enough to hold in working memory.
• Do not repeat the whole architecture.
• Spaced repetition is selective recall, not ritual repetition.