novox/hq

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jschoubben 702efca6bb Base layer: the mesh as it is, under the mesh as it should be

HQ held only the to-be. Every reader had to already know the system the
decisions were about, and an as-is claim had nowhere to live except inside
an intention.

Adds 02-DESIGN/00-as-is — eleven documents written from the implementation
and the operational record, not from intent, including the parts nobody
would choose again. The two existing designs move under 01-to-be. Layers
are declared in frontmatter and never mix: a design that ships does not
move, its as-is counterpart is written, and both stand.

Back-fills adr/0001-0014 for decisions taken in implementation and never
recorded — the broker, the module abstraction, the mesh database, managed
files, provisioning, migrations, the workspace removal, failing loudly,
the constitution, application placement, linking, the employee model, the
artifact, the three silos. Each marked reconstructed, dated from the
history, and citing the evidence it was recovered from. The two existing
records renumber to 0015 and 0016 so the ledger runs oldest first;
0017 extends 0015 to modules outside the core, principle only — the
domain list is deliberately not invented here.

how-we-build.md becomes the source of the mesh constitution, with a sync
playbook, so the enforced copy stops being the only one that is true.

Process becomes explicit: five playbooks, eight thin skills that defer to
them, a repository map, and AGENTS.md with CLAUDE.md as its include.

The five Observations become 04-ISSUES 001-005 where they can be owned and
closed. 006 is new and uncomfortable: HQ is not indexed into the knowledge
base. That claim is what decision 27 rests on, it was never checked, and
the README now says so instead of repeating it.

Also corrects the ADR index into something generated, the "02-DESIGN is
empty" claim, the VISION.md pointer that did not survive the repo split,
and a note asserting the symlink rule was contradicted — it was a
misreading; the rule forbids hand-made links, the installer links by design.

2026-08-23 03:08:26 +02:00

2.6 KiB

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Playbook 02 — Graduation and design change

Trigger. A research effort concludes, or an existing design must change.

Who runs it. Anyone, with the decision recorded before the design moves.

Graduating research

Check it against GENESIS. An effort graduates only if its conclusion is traceable to mission.md, context.md and effect.md. If it conflicts, either the effort is wrong or GENESIS is — say which, in writing, before proceeding.
Record the decision. Write a record in adr/ taking the next free number. Format and rules are in adr/README.md. State evidence, not assertion, and record the options that were rejected — that is the half worth keeping.

Write the design. Create the document under 02-DESIGN/01-to-be/ with frontmatter:

---
layer: to-be
status: designed
code: []             # owning code repo(s); set at build handoff, empty before
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
decisions: [adr/NNNN-....md]
---

Close the effort. Set the effort's status.md frontmatter to status: graduated and became: pointing at the design document and the decision record.
Add a ledger line. Append the decision to DECISIONS.md under today's heading, pointing at the record.

Amending an existing design

A design changes only through a decision.

Write the decision record. If it reverses an earlier one, the earlier record's status: becomes superseded-by: adr/NNNN-....md — its text is never edited.
Edit the to-be design document and set updated: to today.
If the amendment came from an issue, set that issue's amended-design: to the document path.
Add the ledger line.

When something ships

Implementation state is a third axis, independent of both design and decision.

Write or update the matching document under 02-DESIGN/00-as-is/ so it describes what now runs — including anything that shipped differently from the intent. A design that shipped bent is an as-is fact, not a design amendment.
Set the to-be document's status: implemented and its code: to the owning repositories from repos.md.
status: implemented must be defensible from the owning repository's main branch, not from intent. If it cannot be checked, it is in-progress.

Do not

Do not move a to-be document into 00-as-is/. Write the as-is document; both stand.
Do not edit an as-is document to describe an intention. That is what the to-be layer is for.
Do not change a decision record's meaning. Supersede it.

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