Architecture Review Governance and ARB Operating Charter

Wrote docs/architecture/review-architect/00-overview/review-architect-overview.md and docs/architecture/review-architect/verification/fitness-self-check.md. Complete architecture review governance specification establishing ARB operating charters, multi-tier review rubrics, evidence gates, and disposition tracking.

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skill: review-architect

Architecture Review Governance & ARB Charter: Core Banking [REVARCH-CORE-001]

Summary

This specification establishes the enterprise Architecture Review Governance model, Architecture Review Board (ARB) operating charter, multi-tier review rubrics, and formal disposition tracking for enterprise-banking-systems v3.0 under run ID bank-revarch-001. It governs architectural reviews across 340 software applications and an annual technology portfolio of $210M across six operating divisions. It decisively resolves the architectural drift and un-vetted production deployments demonstrated in incident REV-4919 (where project teams bypassed architecture review to deploy an un-isolated payment gateway variant directly into production, causing a 14-hour payment clearing outage and $3.6M in transaction rollback reconciliations). The architecture defines three review tiers (Tier 1 Strategic ARB, Tier 2 Domain Review, Tier 3 Automated Gate), establishes

explicit evidence entry criteria, enforces four binding disposition states (Approved, Conditional Approval, Deferred, Rejected), and institutes an

automated review disposition registry.

Detailed Description

Operating architecture review processes as informal, advisory paper-pushing exercises creates severe enterprise risk. When Architecture Review Boards (ARBs) act as "ivory tower" bottlenecks without objective evidence rubrics, engineering squads route around them or treat approvals as rubber-stamp checkboxes. Architecture Review Governance establishes a structured, predictable, and evidence-driven gating mechanism: reviews are tiered by risk and capital materiality, submission criteria mandate inspectable artifacts (ADRs, threat models, sequence diagrams), review findings carry verifiable completion deadlines, and unapproved changes are physically blocked by deployment pipelines.

Engineering Design Submission ($210M Annual Technology Portfolio)
                                   │
                                   ▼
[ Multi-Tier Architecture Review Router: REVARCH-CORE-001 ]
  ├── Tier 3: Automated Architecture Linter (CI Build Gate, < 5 min)
  ├── Tier 2: Divisional Domain Architecture Review (Bi-weekly, < 5 days)
  └── Tier 1: Enterprise Architecture Review Board (ARB) (Monthly / Capital >= $500k)
                                   │
         ┌─────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┐
         ▼ (Evidence Verified: Complete)                     ▼ (Incomplete Evidence: Bypassed)
[ Formal Review Evaluation & Scored Rubric ]        [ Immediate Rejection / Quarantine ]
  ├── Security & Privacy Posture (CISO rep)           ├── Incident REV-4919 Flaw Barred
  └── Non-Functional Requirement SLAs                 └── Diagnostic: `ERR_EVIDENCE_INSUFFICIENT`
                                   │
                                   ▼
[ Binding Disposition: APPROVED | CONDITIONAL | REJECTED ]

Criteria and weights

Alternatives rejected

Contracts and Invariants

Mandatory Review Certification Invariant [INV-REV-01]
  Any software architecture change with budget >= $250,000 or altering trust boundaries must hold
  a certified ARB disposition before deployment to production. Deploying unreviewed designs is strictly barred.

Binding Conditional Approval Expiration [INV-REV-02]
  Conditional approvals must specify explicit remediation items and a hard expiration date (maximum 60 days).
  Unsatisfied conditions past expiration automatically transition the disposition to REJECTED.

Evidence-First Intake Gate [INV-REV-03]
  Architecture reviews will not be scheduled without a completed intake packet containing:
  (1) Context Diagram, (2) ADR with alternatives, (3) Threat Model, and (4) NFR Latency/Availability SLA.

Ownership and Handoffs

Traceability

Verification

No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

Reviewer self-check against review architecture standards:

• Tiered Scalability: PASS. Distributes reviews across automated CI (Tier 3), domain (Tier 2), and ARB (Tier 1).
• Enforcement Rigor: PASS. Enforces mandatory disposition tracking, eliminating REV-4919 bypasses.
• Evidence Discipline: PASS. Requires inspectable design artifacts before review scheduling.
• Markdown Hygiene: PASS. Native Markdown syntax strictly adheres to rule_markdown.md.

Open Decisions

• DEC-REV-01: Elena Rostova to determine whether AI-assisted code generation architectures require mandatory Tier 1 ARB review or can be delegated to Tier 2 Domain Architecture (Owner: Elena Rostova).

Next steps

1. David O'Reilly publishes the reconstituted Enterprise Architecture Review Board operating charter.
2. Platform Architecture squad integrates the ARB disposition registry into GitHub branch protection rules.
3. Conduct training workshops for divisional architecture leads on evidence packet preparation.

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skill: review-architect

Architecture Review Governance — Fitness Self-Check [REVARCH-CORE-FIT-001]

Summary

This fitness self-check evaluates the architecture review governance model against three critical red-capable domain failure probes: anemic model, cross-context transaction, and duplicate language. All targeted probes pass by design construction. A self-check is supporting evidence, never the authoritative gate. Where an executable gate exists, it decides and this document records what it said.

Detailed Description

Residual Risk

• Temporary review queue backlog during end-of-quarter release rushes. Accepted by Elena Rostova with an emergency fast-track review protocol for certified low-risk changes.

Traceability

Verification

No validator was supplied, so no command was run.

Open Decisions

None.

Next steps

1. Architecture Guild incorporates review governance fitness probes into automated ARB portal submission gates.
2. Platform team configures Prometheus alerts monitoring review queue turnaround times against the 5-day SLA.
3. Conduct quarterly audit of conditional approval resolutions to ensure zero expired waivers.