Ask HN: Are there any openly available software architecture documents?

I'm about to leave my job for another and i'm tasked with documenting the existing architecture and flow of the app.

I'd also have to document why certain decisions were taken. I'm looking for any openly available similar documents for guidance mostly around how to structure the document.

The book `Documenting Software Architectures ...` [1] can help.

[2] and [3] list a few example documents for Software Architectures, you can google further and find some more.

I think reading through a few sample documents and based on the expectations at your current job, you can derive the necessary doc.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Documenting-Software-Architectures-Be...

[2] https://projects.cecs.pdx.edu/attachments/download/3146/Soft...

[3] https://www.voa.va.gov/DocumentView.aspx?DocumentID=188

PlantUML is useful for diagramming anything from sequences to system architecture to state machines. It's also widely supported in many modern text editors like emacs and VSCode. PlantUML components for AWS are widely available [1]. You may find RealWorldPlantUML a good place to start looking for examples [2].

[1] https://github.com/milo-minderbinder/AWS-PlantUML [2] https://real-world-plantuml.com/

Don’t do it like me and overthink it. Just write down all your thoughts informally. Make diagrams by hand. Only once you have most content then think about formatting and structure. A lot of people produce nicely looking docs without much content. I much prefer a bunch of simple notes that describe the thought process