Current AI tools provide generic templates but lack sophisticated domain-specific project structuring that complex applications truly need. They cannot access your existing project codes, making it extremely difficult to work on large application ecosystem initiatives.
The Memory Problem: You have everything in your head but forget to retrace that same state of mind, causing things to go south. This is exactly why design documents serve as your "base thought flow process capturing early on and recursively evolving."
A design document serves as the architectural blueprint for complex applications. It's a comprehensive specification that outlines how a system will be built, detailing the technical approach, system architecture, and implementation strategy before development begins.
Strategic Planning: Forces teams to think through problems thoroughly before coding, preventing costly architectural mistakes and reducing technical debt.
Communication Hub: Creates shared understanding among developers, product managers, stakeholders, and other teams about what's being built and why.
Decision Documentation: Captures the reasoning behind architectural choices, helping future developers understand not just what was built, but why specific approaches were chosen.
Scope Definition: Clearly defines what's included and excluded from the project, preventing scope creep and ensuring focused development.
Complex applications require domain decomposition strategy. Start by identifying your application's core knowledge domains. For example, an e-commerce platform might have domains like User Management, Inventory, Payments, Analytics, and Notifications.
Each domain should have its own sub-project structure with distinct responsibilities and well-defined interfaces between domains using Domain-Driven Design principles.
The design document must capture practical technical architecture, not just theoretical concepts. Here's how features map to infrastructure:
Network Partitions: What happens when Auth Service can't reach User Database? Fallback to cached user roles, degrade to read-only mode.
Circuit Breaker Patterns: Payment service timeout (3 seconds) → Queue order for retry → Notify user of processing delay.
Data Inconsistency: Inventory shows available but payment fails → Compensating transaction to release reserved stock.
Contract Testing: Each service publishes API contracts, automated tests verify cross-service compatibility.
Chaos Engineering: Randomly kill Auth Service during checkout flow → Verify graceful degradation.
Load Testing Scenarios: 1000 concurrent users, payment gateway latency spikes to 10 seconds → system maintains less than 2 second response times.
Create version-controlled knowledge bases that evolve with your project. Use tools like this webpage to capture thought flows, making them audible and resumable. The design document becomes a living, breathing entity that grows with your understanding.
Recursive Evolution: As you build and learn, the design document updates to reflect new insights, edge cases discovered, and architectural refinements. It becomes your external memory that prevents losing that crucial "state of mind."