Minimum Sufficient Decision Architecture (MSDA) - An Architecture Selection Principle for Decision-Making Under Structural Uncertainty

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Artificial intelligence has made information, analytical capability, and machine-assisted reasoning increasingly abundant. Yet decision systems continue to face a different constraint: the structure through which a judgment is formed may itself be inappropriate, excessive, or insufficient for the decision situation at hand. This paper introduces Minimum Sufficient Decision Architecture (MSDA) as an architecture selection principle for decision-making under structural uncertainty. MSDA is defined as the principle that the architecture required to support a decision should be selected or composed according to the structural characteristics and principal uncertainty of the current decision situation, using the minimum structure sufficient to support professional judgment. The central proposition is that decision systems should not impose a universal decision architecture on all matters. Different decision situations may require different structures because the principal uncertainty may concern an established judgment pattern, an incompletely known state of reality, the feasibility of alternative paths, or the impact of continuously emerging events. MSDA therefore treats decision architecture itself as a design variable. The concept emerged from comparative observation of decision structures encountered during the development and application of the Legal Decision Capability Operating System (LCOS). Four currently observed working patterns—Pattern-based, State-driven, Goal/Gate-driven, and Event-driven—are presented as an initial architecture library rather than a closed taxonomy. Within the broader Decision Intelligence Architecture (DIArc), MSDA operates as a Decision Structure Principle, complementary to Minimum Decision Information (MDI), Minimum Decision Unit (MDU), and Minimum Decision Capability (MDC). This note establishes the minimum conceptual boundary of MSDA and constitutes its initial public disclosure.