Record
Decision ID: ADR-001
Status: proposed example, not approved
Owner / date / reviewers: to be assigned
Context
An illustrative service needs to notify staff when a request arrives. Requests must remain available if the email provider is temporarily unavailable.
Options
A. Send email in the request handler: fewer components, but provider failure affects the request.
B. Save the request and queue a notification: more operational work, but delivery can be retried.
Proposed decision
Evaluate a transactional outbox so the request and notification intent are stored together. Use a worker with bounded retries and a visible failure state.
Consequences
Benefits: request handling can be independent of provider availability.
Costs: monitor the queue, handle duplicate delivery, define retention and make failed notifications visible.
Verification and revisit triggers
Test rollback, retry, duplicate processing and provider outage. Review this choice if volume, hosting capabilities or delivery requirements change. Record approval before implementation.