Musgraves wrote the song with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally in early 2023 and produced it with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk.
Musgraves has performed "The Architect" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Today, Austin City Limits, and the 58th Annual Country Music Association Awards, as well as on the Deeper Well World Tour (2024).
"The Architect" was the last song written for Deeper Well; Musgraves had initially considered the album complete but met with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally for another songwriting session in Nashville early 2023.
[2] The three were horrified following a school shooting in the city a few weeks prior that killed six people, and started discussing "the beauty and the terror of being a human".
[14][15] Meanwhile, Joseph Hudak of Rolling Stone disagreed that "The Architect" was twee, calling it an "elegant, deep thinker" instead, and opining that Musgraves should win the Grammy Award for Best Country Song.
[23][24] The music video for "The Architect" was released on December 4, 2024, and features Musgraves as an earth mother who assembles a jigsaw puzzle and rolls around naked in mud.
[26] A puzzle of the single art for "The Architect" was released through Musgraves' online store, as well as guitar tab sheet music for the song.