DECISION-20260323-architecture-layering-resilience-and-config-authority

Context

Task/request: refine the EVOLV architecture baseline using the current stack drawings and owner guidance.
Impacted files/contracts: architecture documentation, future wiki structure, telemetry/storage strategy, security boundaries, and configuration authority assumptions.
Why a decision is required now: the architecture can no longer stay at a generic "Node-RED plus cloud" level; several operating principles were clarified by the owner and need to be treated as architectural defaults.

Benefits: fewer early commitments.
Risks: blurred boundaries for resilience, data ownership, and security; easier to drift into contradictory implementations.
Rollout notes: wiki remains descriptive but not decision-shaping.

Adopt explicit defaults for resilience, API boundary, telemetry layering, and configuration authority

Benefits: clearer target operating model; easier to design stack services and wiki pages consistently; aligns diagrams with intended operational behavior.
Risks: some assumptions may outpace current implementation and therefore create an architecture debt backlog.
Rollout notes: document gaps clearly and treat incomplete systems as planned workstreams rather than pretending they already exist.

Selected option: Option 2.
Decision owner: repository owner confirmed during architecture review.
Date: 2026-03-23.
Rationale: the owner clarified concrete architecture goals that materially affect security, resilience, and platform structure. The documentation should encode those as defaults instead of leaving them implicit.

Compatibility impact: low immediate code impact, but future implementations should align to these defaults.
Safety/security impact: improved boundary clarity by making central the integration entry point and keeping edge protected behind site/central mediation.
Data/operations impact: multi-level InfluxDB and smart-storage behavior become first-class design concerns; tagcodering becomes the intended configuration backbone.

Required code/doc updates: update the architecture review doc, add visual wiki-ready diagrams, and track follow-up work for incomplete tagcodering integration and telemetry policy design.
Validation evidence required: architecture docs reflect the agreed principles and diagrams; no contradiction with current repo evidence for implemented components.

Rollback strategy: return to a generic descriptive architecture document without explicit defaults.
Migration/deprecation plan: implement these principles incrementally, starting with configuration authority, telemetry policy, and site/central API boundaries.