I've always been a fan of repos that I come across with ARCHITECTURE.md files in them, but that's a pretty loose framework and some just describe the what and not the why.
Otherwise, I wish I worked at a place like Oxide that does RFDs. https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer Just a single place with artifacts of a formal process for writing shit down.
In your example, writing down "The greens are oversaturated by X% because we will lose a lot of it in the transfer process to film" goes a long way in at least making people aware of the decision and why it was made, at least then the "hey actually the boosted greens look kinda nice" can prompt a "yeah but we only did that because of the medium we were shipping on, it's wrong"
You're assuming people RTFM, which does not happen at all in my case. Documentation exists for you to link to when someone already lost days on something finally reaches out.
Otherwise, I wish I worked at a place like Oxide that does RFDs. https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer Just a single place with artifacts of a formal process for writing shit down.
In your example, writing down "The greens are oversaturated by X% because we will lose a lot of it in the transfer process to film" goes a long way in at least making people aware of the decision and why it was made, at least then the "hey actually the boosted greens look kinda nice" can prompt a "yeah but we only did that because of the medium we were shipping on, it's wrong"