---
topic: how we work
status: accepted
date: 2026-08-23
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
---

# 21. HQ is the source of the mesh constitution

## Context

[ADR 0020](0020-the-mesh-is-governed-by-a-constitution.md) established a canonical rule set,
injected into every eligible design session and checked before output is accepted. It lives in
the knowledge base, where the orchestrator reads it.

HQ separately carried a document stating overlapping rules with the reasoning that earned each
one. Two texts, one enforced and one not.

That arrangement has a predictable outcome and it is not a tie. The enforced copy wins by
default, because it is the one that blocks work. The reasoned copy quietly stops being true,
and the rules survive without the incidents that justify them — at which point a rule reads as
arbitrary, and an arbitrary rule is the kind people route around.

## Considered options

1. **The knowledge-base page is the source; HQ points at it.** Rejected, though it is the
   honest description of what was already happening. It leaves the reasoning downstream of the
   rule, and the reasoning is the part that makes a rule survive a challenge.
2. **Accept the overlap and let both stand.** Rejected: two authorities is no authority, and
   the drift is silent.
3. **HQ is the source; the governed page is derived and published from it.** Chosen.

## Decision

[`00-META/how-we-build.md`](../00-META/how-we-build.md) is the source. The governed page the
mesh injects is **derived** from it — the rules without the reasoning — and is never edited
directly.

Publishing is a playbook step, not a manual act, and it ends with **reading the page back and
verifying the change is present**. A publish that reported success and did nothing is exactly
the failure class this mesh keeps producing
([ADR 0010](0010-delivery.md)).

Section numbering is stable, because the orchestrator and the review fragments cite sections by
number.

## Consequences

- One source, many surfaces — the same argument HQ's separation already rests on
  ([ADR 0019](0019-how-this-repository-works.md)), applied to the rules themselves.
- Each rule keeps the incident that earned it, in a place that is reviewed as a diff.
- An edit to the derived page survives until the next sync and then vanishes. The playbook says
  so, and nothing mechanically prevents it.
- **The sync is manual and is the weak point.** An unsynced rule is a rule the mesh does not
  enforce, whatever the source says — so the playbook requires the failure to be stated rather
  than passed over. This is the same class of gap as
  [`04-ISSUES/006`](../04-ISSUES/006-hq-is-not-indexed-into-the-knowledge-base/00-report.md),
  and it is worth watching for the same reason.
- The document grew from four rules to seven sections, because it now has to carry everything
  the mesh enforces rather than only what someone thought to write down.

## References

- [`00-META/process/05-constitution-sync.md`](../00-META/process/05-constitution-sync.md) —
  the sync, including the read-back.
- [ADR 0020](0020-the-mesh-is-governed-by-a-constitution.md) — the governed page and why it
  exists.