ADR 0010: Write-side single-threading
Status
Accepted
Context
Parallel autonomous writers collide on merges, violating determinism and bypassing coherent review narratives.
Decision
Parallelism is acceptable on read paths / research; writes that land in one branch must serialize through orchestration (Lead Engineer pattern) unless human explicitly forks work with merge policy.
Encoded in recursion limits and orchestration semantics (docs/concepts/10-subagent-strategy.md).
Forward note (2026-07-05). The
docs/concepts/10-subagent-strategy.mdpath referenced above has no live target — that doc was never created in this repo. The decision (writes serialize through orchestration) stands on its own; the review-orchestration semantics live in the ADR ledger (ADR-0099, ADR-0132).
Consequences
- Positive: merges stay reviewable; fewer conflict-induced silent behaviour changes.
- Negative: throughput cap — tackled via batching orchestration waves, not uncontrolled agents.
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