Keep the options that lost

Claim: a decision record lists every option considered, the chosen one included, with its consequences and why the others lost.

• Grade: convention, adopted; one writer-side experiment.
• Evidence: design-decisions review; state of the art.
• Check: shape-conformance (exact): a record holds an Options section; decision-records (exact): it names its shape.
• Reader styles: a newcomer adds a link from the description to the records.

What it asks

• After the decision, a table: each option, what it would bring, and whether it was chosen or why it lost.
• Keep the debate itself in the design document, and link it.

Why

• In one laboratory experiment, recorded rationale made later decisions more effective when the requirements changed (Falessi 2010, 50 students).
• MADR 2024 adds the options to Nygard's record; participants found its rationale deeper and slower to write (Nogueira 2026, a preprint, 33 undergraduates).

Limits

• The one comparison of templates measured the writer, not the reader.
• Whether the options reduce repeated debate is claimed by PEP 1 and untested.
• Recording rationale costs effort: rationale systems were argued to fail on cost (Lee 1997, secondary). Lack of time or budget was the reason practitioners gave most for not documenting it (60.5% of 81; Tang 2006). Keep it short.