0004 - Git as the Source of Truth
Status
Accepted
Date
2026-07-19
Context
Engineering projects require complete traceability, reproducibility and collaboration.
Traditional engineering tools often implement proprietary repositories and custom versioning mechanisms.
ATON aims to build upon proven open technologies instead of replacing them.
Git already provides:
- distributed collaboration
- immutable history
- branching
- merging
- tagging
- proven scalability
Rather than introducing another repository, ATON integrates with Git.
Decision
Git shall be the primary source of truth for persisted engineering knowledge.
Engineering artifacts are stored in a Git repository.
Git is responsible for file versioning and repository history.
ATON builds engineering semantics on top of Git.
Consequences
Positive
- Proven and mature technology
- Excellent collaboration support
- Offline-first workflow
- No proprietary repository
- Easy integration with existing development processes
Negative
- Git versions files, not engineering concepts
- Additional mapping between Git commits and engineering versions is required
Notes
Git does not replace the ATON Version model.
Git records changes to persisted data.
The ATON Version model records the evolution of engineering knowledge.
Both concepts complement each other.