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# ADR-0076: In-context concept help is an information icon in a hover tooltip

## Status

**Accepted.** Reconstructed from the codebase on 2026-06-13; the pattern is live today and is reused by the 0.28.0 Activity-feed clarity work (odd-platform#1657).

## Context

Some controls expose a concept whose meaning is not obvious from a label alone. The clearest 0.28.0 case is the Activity feed, where **Owner** means the owner of the affected *asset*, **Made by (owner)** means the *current* owner associated with whoever made a change, and **Made by (user)** means that person's *immutable* external username — three ideas a one-word label cannot disambiguate. The platform already solved this class of problem in several places and needs **one** consistent affordance for it, not a parallel invention each time.

## Decision

**In-context concept help is a small information `(i)` icon wrapped in a hover tooltip** carrying a short explanation. Concretely it is the platform's existing `InformationIcon` rendered inside an `AppTooltip`:

```tsx
<AppTooltip title={explanation} checkForOverflow={false}>
  <InformationIcon width={14} height={14} />
</AppTooltip>
```

This is the affordance already used by, among others:

* the Data Entity overview **About** block (`InternalDescriptionHeader`),
* **Term** definitions (`TermDefinition`),
* the **Data Quality SLA** report (`OverviewDQSLAReport`),
* the data-entity **details preview** (`DataEntityDetailsPreview`).

New surfaces that need inline concept help **reuse this pattern** — the same `AppTooltip` + `InformationIcon`, with the help text supplied through the i18n catalogue — rather than introducing a different control (a click popover, a bespoke tooltip, or a longer label). The 0.28.0 Activity-feed filters (Owner / Made by (owner) / Made by (user)) are the newest adopters.

## Consequences

* One consistent, recognisable "(i) tells me more" interaction across the product; users learn it once.
* No new component or dependency — the icon, the tooltip, and i18n already ship; adopters compose them.
* The affordance is hover-based and suited to a short explanation (a sentence or two). It is **not** for interactive content (multi-step flows, in-tooltip links); a control needing that is a different decision, out of scope here.
* This ADR is descriptive — it standardises the existing pattern and directs reuse; it does not mandate retrofitting every terse label at once.