1.3Social Architecture Mapping

Technical systems exist within social systems. Understanding who makes decisions, how decisions flow, and what the unwritten rules are is as important as understanding the code.

Decision makers — Who decides when to release? Who has veto power? Who is the de facto quality authority even if it is not in their job title?

Cultural signals — Does the team celebrate catching bugs before production or only react to production incidents? Are tests treated as first-class code or as an afterthought? Is "it works on my machine" an acceptable response to a bug report?

Unwritten rules — Every team has them. Which tests can be skipped in a rush? Which services are considered stable (and which are actually stable)? Who do you go to when something does not make sense?