Embedded design rationale in software architecture

The increasing interest to consider design decisions and its rationale as an inherent part of the software architecture development process has led to a number of research works that promote the capturing and use of the architecturally significant decisions. Hence, the stakeholders can keep track of the reasons of changes. This paper explores a variety of initiatives from previous works and advocates for an ldquoembedded use of design rationalerdquo in software architecting activities with tool support.