Playbooks, quick refs, and the layer between tools and experience.
The Problem
A few weeks ago I shipped crmarcade — a curated directory Salesforce ecosystem tools. The most common response wasn’t about tools. It was some version of: “Do you have anything like this for architecture decisions?”
Fair question. Tools help you build. But they don’t tell you what to build, or why to build it that way. That knowledge lives in frameworks, checklists, and decision tables that experienced architects carry in their heads — or buried in a Confluence page nobody can find.
I’ve been rebuilding the same discovery question framework for years. Every new engagement, same stakeholder mapping grid. Every options presentation, same evaluation matrix. Every solution design, same mental checklist. I wanted to stop rebuilding it. So I put it on crmarcade.
What Layer 2 Is
Layer 1 was tools — the things you open while working. Layer 2 is architect knowledge — the things you think about while designing.
Playbooks teach a discipline. How to run discovery. How to present options. How to write a solution design that survives past approval. Each one is short on purpose — the key framework, one table, a checklist. Not a 40-page methodology. A tool you can use in fifteen minutes.
Quick refs answer one question: which one do I pick? Platform Events or CDC. Batch, Queueable, or Future. Which API. Which sharing layer. The thing you pull up mid-meeting when someone turns to the architect for the answer.
Four playbooks and five quick refs are live today, with 50+ more topics in the backlog. Every card follows the same format — you always know what to expect.
What’s Next
Layer 1 was tools. Layer 2 is knowledge. Layer 3 is practice — CTA-style architecture scenarios where you design against real constraints. The layers will cross-link. Not ready yet, but it’s in the works.
More playbooks and quick refs are filling in too. Bookmark it.
Try It
crmarcade.com/playbooks
crmarcade.com/quick-refs
Last month I shipped the tools space. This week, architect knowledge. The layers keep stacking.
Until next time! 🙂
