Architecture discussions require precise language. Collocations like evaluate trade-offs and document decisions are the building blocks of technical RFCs, ADRs, and design review meetings.
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Before coding begins, the senior engineers need to ___ the overall architecture.
Design the architecture is the standard collocation in software engineering. It means to define structural patterns, component relationships, and interfaces. 'Plan' is about scheduling. 'Create' is too broad. 'Build' refers to implementation. You design an architecture before you build from it.
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The team spent hours debating whether to ___ the trade-offs between consistency and availability.
Evaluate trade-offs is the fixed collocation for systematically assessing the pros and cons of competing architectural options. 'Weigh' is also natural but slightly less formal. 'Consider' is too vague. 'Analyse' is close but implies a more data-driven, separate process. Evaluate trade-offs is the architectural decision-making standard.
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Every major architectural choice should be ___ in an Architecture Decision Record.
Document decisions is the idiomatic collocation. An ADR (Architecture Decision Record) is the tool, and the act is documenting — capturing context, options, and rationale in a structured way. 'Record' is close but more general. 'Note' is informal. 'Write' doesn't carry the structured, preservational meaning.
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Before committing to a microservices approach, the team decided to ___ their assumptions about traffic load.
Validate assumptions is the precise architectural collocation. It means to actively verify that the beliefs underpinning a decision are actually true. 'Test' is for code. 'Confirm' implies someone else affirms something. 'Check' is informal. Validate emphasizes rigor and is the standard term in system design discussions.
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After a year in production, the team agreed to ___ the original constraints to see if they still applied.
Revisit constraints is the natural collocation meaning to return to previously set limitations and assess whether they are still valid. 'Review' implies formal evaluation. 'Reconsider' is about changing one's mind. 'Re-evaluate' is close but longer. Revisit is the most natural and common engineering idiom for this action.