The Cognitive Drift Problem
As developers leverage advanced LLMs, the rate of code modification increases by orders of magnitude. Without a structured architectural contract, three critical failures occur:
1. Context Window SaturationAI agents treat raw file directory listings as unstructured text blobs. As the file count grows, the system architecture becomes highly unstable, resulting in duplicative helper modules and bloated layers.
2. Immediate ObsolescenceTraditional long-form markdown documentation falls out of sync the microsecond an agent refactors an API boundary. Humans spend hours tracing git diffs to figure out *why* a module was created.
The Solution: Architecture-As-Memory
AAM establishes a local, static, validated representation of architectural intent. It forces a clear hierarchy: System → Domains → Features → Components. Every capability is mapped to the business logic it fulfills, preventing flat-structure fragmentation.