ADR-0001: Orchestration-first, not system-of-record

• Status: Accepted
• Date: 2026-07-25
• Deciders: El

Context

As a two-person consultancy serving Australian SMBs, building a system of record (CRM, job management, accounting) means competing head-on with entrenched tools (ServiceM8, Clio, Xero) and turning onboarding into a migration. Clients already run tools they trust.

Decision

The BOS orchestrates the best-in-kind tools clients already run. It owns only a thin spine — work-item state, AI decisions, and memory — and orchestrates content (emails, documents, invoices, calendar) in place, referencing external records by ID rather than copying them. It becomes the system of record for a primitive only when a client genuinely lacks one (a thin fallback), never by default.

Consequences

Low adoption friction; complementary rather than rip-and-replace; the integration/connector surface becomes the main product surface and the primary scaling constraint; exposure to third-party API changes and limits.

Alternatives considered

• Full system-of-record — rejected: competing with mature vertical software as two people.
• Pure orchestration with no owned spine — rejected: fragile, no home of its own.