Introduction

Here you find answers to the most common questions regarding arc42, the proven, practical (free!) standard for documenting and communicating software architecture. These FAQ have been extracted from the book arc42 in practice (which itself is an enhanced translation from the German-language printed book arc42 in Aktion.

arc42 is based on years of experience and used successfully since 2005 in many companies and organizations in different application domains.

First of all arc42 is a template for architecture documentation. It answers the following two questions in a pragmatic way:

• What should we document/communicate about our architecture?
• How should we document/communicate?

The diagram below gives you the big picture: It shows a (slightly simplified) overview of the structure of arc42.

If you want to lean more about arc42: There are plenty of examples available.