Open Specification

The Decision Ledger Standard.

An open, tool-agnostic format for recording business decisions with their reasoning. Six fields, five principles, plain files. Published under CC BY 4.0 — use it in Obsidian, in a folder of Markdown files, or in ADAMAS. The standard is useful without us; our product automates it.

v1.0 · June 2026 · CC BY 4.0

The six fields

ContextThe situation at the time of the call — written so a reader five years later understands why it was hard.
DecisionThe exact choice made, dated, precise enough to be falsifiable.
OwnerThe role that made the call — roles survive staff changes. Dissent is recorded, not erased.
Trade-offsWhat was knowingly given up or risked. The field nobody writes down — and the most valuable one.
LinksBi-directional references between decisions. A list becomes a knowledge graph.
DomainHiring · Sales · Product · Finance · Ops. Filtering, ownership boundaries, asset generation.

Full field definitions with a worked JSON example: ledger schema documentation →

The five principles

  1. Decisions are never deleted. A reversed decision stays in the ledger with status reversed and a link to its successor. The history is the asset.
  2. The owner is a role, not a name. Accountability must survive promotions, departures, and reorganizations.
  3. Dissent is recorded. Knowing who disagreed and why is most valuable exactly when the decision is later questioned.
  4. Links are bi-directional. If A links B, B links A. Maintained on every write.
  5. Sources are traceable. Every entry points to where the decision actually happened — a thread, a meeting, a document.

Downloads

JSON Schemadecision-ledger-standard.schema.json Markdown entry templatedecision-ledger-entry-template.md Starter Kit (zip)templates + worked examples

Why an open standard

Because the format shouldn't be the moat. Your decision history must outlive any tool — including ours. That's why the standard is plain Markdown and JSON, licensed CC BY 4.0, and documented well enough to implement without us. What ADAMAS adds is automation: capture from your existing tools, bi-directional link maintenance, and asset generation — see the live demo.

Suggestions or implementations of the standard in other tools: hello@adamas-project.com. Versioned changes are published on this page.

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