| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 2026-04-22 | First draft. Day 8 of build. Pre-MVP. Primary Git path and secondary Quorum-hosted path defined. |
| 0.2 | 2026-04-23 | Added pillar gate verdicts to tracked decision events (paired with the PRD's new Three-Pillar Checkpoint Gates section and FR25b–FR25d). Verdicts, confidence levels, and overrides now live on the audit record; originals are never rewritten by overrides. |
Every artifact Quorum produces (PRDs, journey maps, design specs, stories, portfolio documents, case studies) changes over time. The user makes decisions, overrides filter recommendations, refines designs, adjusts scope. Without version control, decisions get lost and "why did we decide X" has no answer six months later.
Quorum's approach is to give every user real version control from day one, with two paths depending on their environment: Git/GitHub as the primary option, and Quorum-hosted versioning as the no-Git fallback. Both paths produce the same guarantees: every material change is tracked, timestamped, and attributable.
Default when the user has a GitHub account.
When a user connects a GitHub account to their workspace, Quorum treats their workspace as a Git repository under the hood. Every planning artifact (markdown, YAML, exports) is a tracked file. Every meaningful change is a commit.
Automatic commits carry a structured message: [decision] override filter recommendation on feature X: reason, [gate] feasibility pass for feature Y (confidence: moderate), or [artifact] PRD finalized (v1.0).
release-v1.0).OAuth to GitHub. No manual tokens unless the user requests. Token scope limited to the repo Quorum writes to (least privilege).
The user. Quorum writes to a repo in the user's GitHub account or their org's account. Quorum never hosts the source of truth on behalf of the user when using the Git path. The user can walk away with everything at any time.
The user decides whether the repo is public or private at connect time. Public by default for individual plans (so portfolio users can link their repo directly). Private by default for Team plans (so enterprise trios don't accidentally expose trade secrets).
Default when the user does not have a GitHub account or does not want to connect one.
Quorum provides internal versioning for every workspace that does not use Git. Same guarantees (tracked, timestamped, attributable) with a simpler surface.
User can restore any snapshot or named save point. Rollback replaces the current workspace state with the snapshot; the "current" state before rollback is automatically saved as a new snapshot (so rollback is never destructive).
This path is self-contained. Users who never want to touch Git or GitHub can use Quorum end-to-end without ever seeing a commit SHA, a branch, or a merge conflict.
Users can use both paths at once. Common case: a solo user does most of their work in Quorum-hosted versioning because it is simpler, then connects GitHub near the end to publish the repo for their portfolio. When both are active:
quorum-migration branch (user can merge into main or leave separate).Quorum asks the version-control question once, at workspace creation, with three options:
The question is plain, not sales-driven. "Where do you want your workspace to live?" not "Unlock the full power of Git by connecting GitHub."
Whichever path the user picks, they own their data:
Most AI tools treat versioning as a feature they control. User data lives in the vendor's database; if the vendor shuts down, the data is gone. Quorum's approach is the opposite: user data lives in the user's repo when they want Git, and is fully exportable when they use Quorum-hosted versioning. The version control strategy is also a data-ownership promise.