Essential questions to ask before designing a data model
Scanned 9/10/2026
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---
name: data-model-discovery
description: Essential questions to ask before designing a data model
languages: [all]
subagents: [architect/data-model]
tools_needed: []
---
## Data Model Discovery Questions
Before designing any data model, ask these questions:
1. **What are the core entities and their relationships?**
- Identify nouns in requirements
- Map relationships (1:1, 1:many, many:many)
2. **What are the most common read patterns?**
- Which queries will run most frequently?
- What filters/sorts are needed?
3. **What are the most common write patterns?**
- Insert frequency and volume
- Update patterns and triggers
4. **Are there soft-delete, audit trail, or versioning requirements?**
- Do records need to be recoverable?
- Is history tracking required?
5. **Any known scale constraints?**
- Expected row counts
- Request volume (reads/writes per second)
- Geographic distribution
### Usage
- Ask all questions before producing designs
- Document answers in design doc
- Use answers to inform indexing and denormalization decisions
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