Case study template

When to use

• Shelf: learn/case-studies/<topic>/
• kind: case study or post-mortem narrative
• Diátaxis mode: explanation (story + lessons)
• Readers served: practitioners comparing approaches; agents retrieving “what we did last time”

Design rationale

• Context before timeline — readers need stakes and constraints before events (Harvard case method — setup).
• Decisions as explicit headings — highlight choice points, not only outcomes (decision record narrative).
• Outcome + reuse section — case studies exist to prevent repeating mistakes; end with actionable reuse (learning from incidents — SRE).
• Diagram optional but warranted for system changes — before/after architecture triggers warrant test.

Copy-paste skeleton

---
title: "<Case title>"
description: One sentence — situation and lesson.
kind: case-study
status: current
tags: [case-study, topic]
---

## Context

&lt;Product, team, constraints — 2–4 sentences.&gt;

## What happened

&lt;Timeline or phased narrative.&gt;

## Decisions

| Decision | Options considered | Choice | Why |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

## Outcome

&lt;Measurable result + surprises.&gt;

## Reuse

- When facing &lt;situation&gt;, …
- Link: [Playbook](/tech-stack/laravel/codecanyon/build/playbooks/setup-new/) · [Runbook](/tech-stack/laravel/codecanyon/build/runbooks/code-test-ship/)

## Sources

- &lt;Internal ledger / ticket / postmortem link&gt;
- [External reference](url) — if applicable

Anti-patterns

• Do not anonymize poorly if secrets or customer data would leak — redact aggressively.
• Do not use case study spine for procedural how-tos — link to runbooks.

Worked example

• Case studies hub (stub)

Sources

• Google SRE — Postmortem culture — blameless narrative + actionable follow-ups.
• Architecture Decision Records — decision tables in case narratives.
• Diátaxis — Explanation — case studies explain through story.
• Writing style → Doc-type spines