Data Architecture

Data Architecture Document Checklist

Your table of contents against the twenty-one sections a data architecture document is expected to cover.

Loading the tool…

Processing happens locally in your browser. What you paste or load is processed by this page and is not uploaded to a server. Nothing is stored unless you use a control that says it stores something, and you can clear anything this site has kept from the privacy page.

How to use this tool

  1. Paste your document contents page, one heading per line. Numbering and bullet characters are stripped for you.
  2. Select Check the document. Leave the box empty first if you want the blank template.
  3. Mark off anything reported as missing that you cover under a different heading — matching is on keywords, not meaning.
  4. For everything genuinely missing, read the question in the last column and decide whether it needs a section or a sentence.

What data architecture checklist does

Architecture documents fail in a predictable way. They are thorough about the parts the author enjoyed — the model, the platform, the diagram — and silent about retention, cost, recovery and who owns what, which are the parts that generate incidents eighteen months later. The gap is rarely a disagreement; it is that nobody was holding a list.

Paste your contents page, one heading per line, and it is compared against the twenty-one sections a data architecture document is expected to cover. Matching is on keywords, so a section written in your own house style may read as missing even when it is there — the tool errs that way deliberately, because a checklist that over-credits you is worse than none. The column worth reading is the last one: each section is stated as the question it exists to answer, and a heading that does not answer its question is not coverage. Leave the box empty to get the whole list as a blank template.

Frequently asked questions

They are the sections that data architecture documents are repeatedly found to be missing rather than a formal standard from any one framework. They line up broadly with what TOGAF, DAMA-DMBOK and most in-house templates ask for, but the wording here is deliberately the question each section answers rather than a heading, because an empty heading is the usual failure.

Matching is on keywords against the headings you pasted, so a section called "Keeping the lights on" will not be recognised as availability and recovery. The tool errs towards reporting missing, because a checklist that quietly over-credits you is worse than no checklist. Mark those off yourself.

You need to have answered every question; you do not need twenty-one headings to do it. On a small platform retention, classification and recovery might be three paragraphs rather than three sections. The failure this catches is not brevity — it is silence, and silence on cost, retention and ownership is what generates incidents about eighteen months in.

Yes — run it with the box empty and every section comes back as missing, which gives you the complete list with each question stated. Download it as CSV and use it as the skeleton of the document, or as the agenda for the design review.

Further reading