Architectural design intent for software is represented in some type of concrete form. A set of computable rules are inferred from the representation of the architectural design intent. The rules are applied to the codebase at various points in the development process including but not limited to when source code is checked into a project or when a build is run, or when a test run is performed. If the codebase being developed is not consistent with the architectural intent of the designer as captured, feedback concerning non-compliance is provided.