Note

The diagram should be the source

The note that eventually became ARCH.

Every architecture review at Adex started with a diagram in a slide deck. Every implementation ended with Terraform that had drifted from it. Nobody was at fault; there was simply no mechanical link between the two.

A diagram that is generated from the infrastructure is documentation. A diagram that generates the infrastructure is a source.

The second is harder and worth more, because it removes the possibility of drift rather than reporting on it after the fact. That is the whole premise of ARCH.