diff --git a/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c872fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/config.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+# A blank issue stays one click away. The design template carries the shape of
+# a Design record as prompts in the body rather than as required form fields,
+# because a form that refuses a filing it cannot satisfy moves the report
+# somewhere nobody tracks, and a thin issue is still an issue.
+blank_issues_enabled: true
diff --git a/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/design.md b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/design.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5cf4ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/design.md
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+---
+name: Design record
+about: A ruling on what uphold will build -- what is chosen, what is rejected and why, and the pull requests that carry it
+title: "Design: "
+labels: design, ruling:pending
+assignees: ''
+---
+
+<!--
+Seven headings, in the same place in every record, so a reader who opens the
+tenth one finds each answer where the first one put it. Nothing refuses a
+filing with a heading left blank: an empty heading is a question the next
+reader can see was not answered. Delete a heading only when it does not apply,
+rather than leaving a prompt standing in for an answer, and delete this comment.
+
+The research behind the decision goes in a comment on this issue, not in the
+body: every option considered, with its version, the date it was read, and the
+evidence for each claim. The body states the ruling; the comment is what it
+was ruled on.
+-->
+
+## Goal
+
+<!-- One paragraph: what changes for a repository that runs uphold. -->
+
+## Today
+
+<!--
+What exists, with the file or command output that shows it and the revision it
+was read at.
+-->
+
+## Decision
+
+<!--
+What is chosen, in bold. Then each rejected option in one clause: what it is
+and why it lost. Link the research comment from here.
+-->
+
+## Design
+
+<!--
+The mechanism: which rule kind, set, seam or command carries it, and what
+it reads. Where a picture carries more than the prose, draw it as a fenced
+```mermaid block; GitHub renders it in the issue.
+-->
+
+## Plan
+
+<!--
+Numbered, one pull request per item, smallest first. Each item names what it
+stands on -- the existing library, or the engine feature (a rule kind, a
+bundled set, a seam) -- so nothing is written by hand where one of those
+already does the job.
+-->
+
+## Done when
+
+<!--
+A checklist a reviewer can tick from the tree alone. Each item names the test
+or the rule that holds the decision once it is merged; a decision with neither
+is prose, and prose has no condition on which to fail.
+-->
+
+## Open
+
+<!-- What is still unverified, deferred, or left to watch. -->
diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index f46f10f..2337b95 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ Do NOT re-enforce the static rules. They run on every change and they run
 first; repeating their findings costs a reviewer's attention and buys a second
 opinion nobody asked for. The rules already active here are:
 
+- `adr-freeze`
 - `catalog-reference-current`
 - `catalog-tests`
 - `catalog-validate`
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 0011e78..75a835e 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -73,6 +73,27 @@ list, put it at that path, or point `private_owners_file` at it from the top of
 the policy file, and the two forms the note names are checked as well. See
 [REFERENCE.md](docs/REFERENCE.md#where-the-owner-list-lives).
 
+## Where a decision goes
+
+A change that needs a decision is a GitHub issue in the
+[Design record](.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/design.md) shape before a pull request
+exists: the decision in the body, and the research in a comment that carries
+the version, date and evidence of each claim. A Design record carries exactly
+one ruling label. The template files it with `ruling:pending`, and the ruling
+is recorded by replacing that label with `ruling:accepted`, `ruling:rejected`
+or `ruling:deferred`.
+
+The repository receives only what runs, plus
+[REFERENCE.md](docs/REFERENCE.md), which stays the normative statement of what
+uphold does now. Tracked files carry no issue numbers, dates or status lines;
+those stay in the Design record that rules the change.
+
+The records under `docs/adr/` stay as history and are cited as they are. No new
+one is added: the `adr-freeze` rule in `policy/principles.toml` refuses any
+other file under that directory, and its message names the remedy.
+[ADR 0012](docs/adr/0012-a-rule-may-reach-the-content-its-repository-pins.md)
+stands at Proposed until the owner rules it.
+
 ## Working on the engine
 
 The checks run at three stages, chosen by cost. The commit stage runs what can
diff --git a/REVIEW.md b/REVIEW.md
index f46f10f..2337b95 100644
--- a/REVIEW.md
+++ b/REVIEW.md
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ Do NOT re-enforce the static rules. They run on every change and they run
 first; repeating their findings costs a reviewer's attention and buys a second
 opinion nobody asked for. The rules already active here are:
 
+- `adr-freeze`
 - `catalog-reference-current`
 - `catalog-tests`
 - `catalog-validate`
diff --git a/ROADMAP.md b/ROADMAP.md
index b541713..68fff1a 100644
--- a/ROADMAP.md
+++ b/ROADMAP.md
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 # Roadmap
 
+The direction of the work, by area. The live state -- what is scheduled, what
+is in progress, what is waiting on a ruling -- is the issue tracker's milestones
+and labels, and this page cites no issue by number.
+
 ## Catalog
 
 - Promote seed entries to reviewed status after source and field review; every
@@ -70,7 +74,7 @@ provenance in refusal output. The remaining work is per repository.
   `target/` and test corpora. Adopting it widens what is scanned, so it is done
   per repository rather than as a fleet sweep.
 
-## Evidence providers, and what issue 165 leaves open
+## Evidence providers, and what the evidence layer leaves open
 
 The evidence layer ([ADR 0008](docs/adr/0008-evidence-and-what-a-policy-may-consume.md))
 ships with three compiled-in providers (Git over the message, tree-sitter over
@@ -78,13 +82,13 @@ the staged trees, a pattern over the staged diff) and one policy,
 `removed-function-named`, that reads them. Not yet shipped:
 
 - **A compiler or LSP provider.** `symbol_defined`, `unresolved_reference` and
-  `type_changed` are kinds the issue names and nothing reports; a kind with no
-  provider would be dead configuration. ADR 0004 measured what the semantic tier
-  costs before a commit, so such a provider belongs at the manual stage or
-  nowhere.
+  `type_changed` are kinds the evidence-layer design names and nothing reports;
+  a kind with no provider would be dead configuration. ADR 0004 measured what
+  the semantic tier costs before a commit, so such a provider belongs at the
+  manual stage or nowhere.
 - **`dependency_edge` and layer kinds.** The architectural-boundary policy the
-  issue sketches needs a provider that resolves imports across modules, the
-  same tier as above.
+  evidence-layer design sketches needs a provider that resolves imports across
+  modules, the same tier as above.
 - **An `Inferred` provider.** The variant exists and is tested with a double;
   no provider produces it. Its seam is `uphold hook`, where an agent's own
   account of a change is already read. Whatever it reports is `Inferred` by
diff --git a/policy/principles.toml b/policy/principles.toml
index dda8110..6e90b9a 100644
--- a/policy/principles.toml
+++ b/policy/principles.toml
@@ -225,6 +225,42 @@ files.exclude = ["**/tests/**", "**/test/**"]
 # The same selection as the rule above, and the same floor for the same reason.
 files.min_selected = 1
 
+# A decision is a Design record issue, and docs/adr is the history of the
+# decisions made before that. The records already written stay, and are cited
+# as they are; a new file beside them would be a second home for the next
+# decision, with no ruling label and no issue for the discussion to happen on.
+#
+# A path rule rather than prose: `path_regexp` reads the paths git tracks, so a
+# file staged under docs/adr is a finding at the commit that stages it. The
+# records that exist are excluded one by one, by exact path, so a new name is
+# refused even when it copies the numbering. Editing one of them in place
+# stays allowed, since an amendment to a status line is still history.
+#
+# No `files.min_selected`: the state this rule exists to hold is a selection
+# of nothing, so a floor cannot tell a frozen tree from a moved one.
+[rule.adr-freeze]
+message = """
+file a Design record issue (label design) instead; docs/adr is frozen history.
+The records already under docs/adr stay and are cited as they are; a decision
+not yet ruled goes to the issue tracker, and the repository receives what runs.
+"""
+path_regexp = '^docs/adr/'
+files.include = ["docs/adr"]
+files.exclude = [
+    "/docs/adr/0001-a-config-surface-a-stranger-can-read-in-one-minute.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0002-the-reach-of-a-command-shim.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0003-the-structural-tier-and-what-a-clean-run-means.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0004-the-semantic-tier-and-what-it-costs-to-be-sure.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0005-what-a-provider-must-answer.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0006-what-a-bundled-set-may-attach-to-a-command.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0007-what-the-surveyed-orchestrators-collapse.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0008-evidence-and-what-a-policy-may-consume.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0009-a-consumers-structural-rules-are-ast-greps.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0010-who-asks-whether-a-hook-pin-is-current.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0011-what-an-entry-is-where-it-is-used-and-how-a-check-sees-it.md",
+    "/docs/adr/0012-a-rule-may-reach-the-content-its-repository-pins.md",
+]
+
 # A hook's display name is the one line it prints while it runs, and it is read
 # by somebody who is not reading the file it came from. `uphold guard
 # (pre-commit)` meant the stage, and under prek the terminal said
diff --git a/policy/upheld.toml b/policy/upheld.toml
index 493cb29..d846245 100644
--- a/policy/upheld.toml
+++ b/policy/upheld.toml
@@ -197,6 +197,16 @@ rule = "review-current"
 # would make this claim false is `--review --check` exiting 0 over a compiled
 # document that differs from what --emit would write now.
 
+[[enforce]]
+principle = "single-authoritative-source"
+rule = "adr-freeze"
+# A decision has one home, the Design record issue, where the ruling label and
+# the discussion live. The rule refuses a new file under docs/adr, which would
+# be a second home for the next decision. What would make this claim false is
+# the scan exiting 0 over a tracked docs/adr path that is not one of the
+# records the rule names; it does not see a decision written into some other
+# directory, and a renamed docs/adr selects nothing and reads clean.
+
 # What routes to a rule, and what routes to a reviewer.
 #
 # `enforcement.automatable = "yes"` says a machine CAN decide the principle. It