Documentation that has no consumer and no enforcement mechanism is documentation that will lie to you.
Anchored Development is a framework for living documentation in AI-assisted software development. It defines four interconnected artifact types — code, tests, specs, and ADRs — and the practices that prevent them from drifting apart.
The entire framework is defined in a single file:
This is the sole authoritative source. The website renders this file directly at build time — it is not a copy or a rewrite; it is the spec file with styling applied. If the website and the spec ever disagree, the spec is correct.
The spec itself talks about adoption. See Adopting Anchored Development on the website for a styled walkthrough. For an example minimal starting point, see the example repository.
This project follows its own framework. The specs, ADRs, and tooling here are NOT intended as examples — they are the real files that govern this repository. If you are looking for a starting point for your own project, see How to Implement.
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Specs: docs/specs/ — behavioral expectations by domain
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ADRs: docs/decisions/ — architectural reasoning and rejected alternatives
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Drift detection: .claude/agents/drift-detector.md — agent and CI job that enforces artifact consistency
Spec text and website content are CC BY-SA 4.0. Code is MPL 2.0. See ADR-001 for the reasoning.