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ADR-0006: Notion as Management, Not Canonical Source

Status

proposed — decided during initial drafting; not yet formally ratified by a human review checkpoint.

Date

2026-07-10

Context

Notion is already useful, or expected to be useful, for the kind of day-to-day management work Git and Markdown are not well suited to — kanban-style task tracking, roadmap views, quick discussion threads, and portfolio dashboards. ADR-0001 established Git as the canonical documentation source; this ADR states the complementary decision about what Notion is actually for, so its role is not left ambiguous or allowed to expand into duplicating canonical content.

Decision

Notion is a management and collaboration system: portfolio views, prioritization, task tracking, roadmaps, and discussion. It is not canonical for any approved repository documentation — standards, decisions, specifications, or governance policy. Where Notion content appears to summarize or restate something also recorded in Git, the Git version governs. See docs/governance/git-and-notion-responsibilities.md for the operational split of responsibilities.

Consequences

  • Notion can be used freely for fast-moving planning and collaboration work without risk of it being mistaken for authoritative policy.
  • Anyone referencing a rule or decision in a customer-facing or legally relevant context should point to the Git document, not a Notion page, even if a Notion page exists with similar content.
  • Some duplication of effort is possible if a task or roadmap item in Notion needs a corresponding formal specification in Git — this is an accepted cost of keeping the two tools' roles distinct.
  • A future sync or integration approach between Notion and this repository may be defined later (e.g., to reduce duplication), but is explicitly out of scope for this decision.

Alternatives Considered

  • Notion as the primary source, Git as a mirror. Rejected: contradicts ADR-0001 and reintroduces the version-history and reviewability weaknesses that motivated choosing Git as canonical in the first place.
  • No use of Notion at all. Rejected: Notion's collaboration and lightweight-planning strengths are genuinely useful for portfolio and task management in a way that authoring Markdown files in Git is not well suited to; excluding it entirely would push planning work into less appropriate tools.

Follow-up Actions

  • Define the operational split of responsibilities in docs/governance/git-and-notion-responsibilities.md (tracked as part of this founding documentation effort).
  • Revisit whether a sync/integration mechanism is worth building once actual usage patterns in both tools are established.

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