Beacon/docs/decisions/0001-initial-architecture.md

ADR 0001: Initial architecture

Decision

Use a modular Next.js monolith with PostgreSQL, Drizzle and Better Auth. Model workspaces from the start and use explicit workspace paths. Keep metadata suppliers behind adapters.

Rationale

The expected scale is a small private community, so a single deployable is simpler to operate and evolve. PostgreSQL gives transactional constraints for memberships and recommendations. Drizzle provides reviewed SQL migrations without schema synchronization in production. Better Auth provides password and session primitives without a mandatory cloud service.

No Redis, queues or microservices are introduced: no demonstrated workload requires them. A future worker can consume the same database and provider contracts without changing the web application's domain model.