Toolbox

Decision rights template

Give every design system decision one decider and a deadline: 26 rules, a JSON matrix, a checker and a CODEOWNERS generator.

What it is

Field Guide 06: governance as throughput. 26 rules for who decides what, how fast and with which record, drawn from RAPID, DACI, RACI, the advice process, ADRs and design system contribution models. The kit is a machine-readable decision-rights matrix for 12 common design system decisions, a checker that flags decisions with no single decider, no SLA or a committee as decider, a generator that writes GitHub CODEOWNERS from the matrix, a time-to-decision report and ADR, RFC and pull request templates.

When to use

When design system requests wait on a council, when nobody can say who approves a token change, or when agents and contributors open pull requests faster than the team decides on them.

How to use

Map the template's fields to the framework your organisation already uses (RAPID, DACI or RACI)
Copy decision-rights.json and give each of your ten most common decisions one decider and an SLA
Run node scripts/check-decision-rights.mjs until it reports no errors
Generate .github/CODEOWNERS from the matrix and require code-owner review
Log decisions and run sla-report.mjs weekly; review the matrix every quarter

Before you start

Prerequisites and when to skip this.

Prerequisites

A design system team with named people in its roles
A GitHub repository where you can change branch protection (for the CODEOWNERS part)

When NOT to use this

A one-person system: you are the decider for everything, write the SLA down and skip the matrix
To settle a disagreement about who should own the system (decide that first, then write the matrix)

Consider instead

You only need a lightweight contribution process: Start with Brad Frost's governance flow or GOV.UK's contribution criteria, then add deciders and SLAs

Downloads

Guide (PDF)Full kit (ZIP): matrix, checker, CODEOWNERS generator, SLA report, templates

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