Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)

We use ADRs to capture significant technical and research decisions in LocoLLM.

What is an ADR?

An Architecture Decision Record is a short document that captures a single decision, including the context, the decision itself, and the consequences. ADRs are immutable once accepted — if a decision is reversed, a new ADR supersedes the old one.

When to write an ADR

Write an ADR when a decision:

• Affects multiple components or the overall system architecture
• Constrains future student work (e.g., base model choice, adapter format)
• Is non-obvious and someone might later ask “why did we do it this way?”
• Changes a previous ADR

You do not need an ADR for routine implementation choices.

Format

Use the template in 0000-template.md. Key sections:

1. Title — short noun phrase (e.g., “Use Qwen3-4B as base model”)
2. Status — proposed | accepted | deprecated | superseded by ADR-NNNN
3. Context — What is the issue? What forces are at play?
4. Decision — What we decided and why
5. Consequences — What becomes easier, harder, or different?

Numbering

ADRs are numbered sequentially: 0001-, 0002-, etc.

Index

ADR	Title	Status
0001	Use Qwen3-4B-Instruct as base model for 2026-2027	Accepted
0002	YAML-based adapter registry with domain grouping	Proposed
0003	Single evolving router over parallel routers	Proposed
0004	Retire Cerebro, adopt B250 Mining Expert as multi-GPU platform	Superseded by ADR-0005
0005	WEIHO 8-GPU enclosed chassis replaces B250 open frame for Colmena	Accepted
0006	GGUF and Ollama as inference standard	Accepted