Organizations ADR 015: Non-isolation is a permanent Organization state

Context

Organization Isolation assumes every Organization eventually isolates, and Non-isolated organizations on GitLab.com treats non-isolation only as a starting point on the way there. Whether non-isolation is temporary or a valid, permanent outcome has been ambiguous until now. This ADR makes it explicit.

Decision

A non-isolated Organization is a permanent, valid state. An Organization is never required to isolate. Isolation is something an Organization’s owner opts into, if and when it makes sense for them — not a destination every Organization is expected to reach.

Consequences

1. Organization Isolation’s opening claim, that all Organization data will be isolated, is corrected as part of this ADR. Its phased rollout further down still describes engineering milestones as though every Organization eventually isolates; revising that is a separate piece of work.
2. A non-isolated Organization may remain on the legacy Cell indefinitely, not only until it isolates. A separate, upcoming Organization-scoped request context blueprint works out what this means for Cell placement in full.
3. Multi-Organization membership is not a temporary side effect of an in-progress migration. It is a permanent capability for any Organization that stays non-isolated.

Alternatives considered

1. Treat non-isolation as a temporary migration state, with every Organization eventually isolating — rejected. Isolation means no data crosses the boundary, so an isolated Organization gives up all interop with other Organizations. Many Organizations rely on that interop today. Isolating every Organization anyway would break real workflows for them; assuming it will happen assumes a replacement interop capability that does not exist yet. One idea, sometimes called “Org Connect,” could someday fill that gap, but it remains a long way off.

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