The IRLDAT project aims to design a national infrastructure to support the active part of the research data lifecycle. This report summarises the design decisions that were taken for the technical setup of the pilot, including technology choices (Nextcloud vs Owncloud, AAI) and architectural setup (central, distributed, federated). The decisions were made following workshops with experts from EUDAT and SURF in the first few months of the project. The choices made are solely for the purposes of the pilot and to gain experience, and the final recommendation for a production quality service may differ based on the experience gained.