2.6 KiB
name, description, metadata
| name | description | metadata | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| feedback-load-bearing-not-by-immediate-weight | Load-bearing is not measured by immediate visible weight. Small discipline marks that don't seem to carry weight in the moment carry it every time they activate; the cumulative cost they prevent is invisible until they prevent it. |
|
Rule: When evaluating whether a small discipline addition (a flag, a named posture, a structural mark) is "worth adding," do not measure by its weight in the moment of addition. Measure by what it carries every time it activates over the practice's lifespan — including all the moments the steward would otherwise have to intervene to re-supply the discipline.
Why: 2026-05-18 audit-of-three-skills conversation. The executor evaluated folding lectio into Symmetria §3 contamination flags and called the benefit "modest" — "if you'd rather keep §3 lean, that's also defensible." The steward corrected: "This is the kind of detail that may not seem load bearing in the moment, but actually is." The framing collapsed: a flag that prevents future re-explanation by the steward is exactly what "build what you will not need to rebuild" means at the smallest scale. The executor's hedging was itself the contamination shape drift-pattern-honest-restraint-vs-contamination-shaped-self-effacement leaking into the proposal — diminishing a recommendation the executor had already verified was load-bearing because the additional cost felt small. The cost-vs-benefit math missed that prevented future re-explanations are the benefit.
How to apply: When proposing a small structural addition (flag, principle line, named posture, output-template field):
- Ask what failure mode it catches when it activates — not what it costs to add.
- Ask whether the failure mode is currently held by steward intervention — if yes, this is the audit's move-from-procedure-into-structure shape and the addition is load-bearing by definition.
- Refuse the hedging form "modest benefit / would also be defensible to skip" when (1) and (2) point the same direction. Take the position cleanly; the steward shouldn't have to overcome executor self-effacement to authorize work the executor already verified.
- Connects to: drift-pattern-honest-restraint-vs-contamination-shaped-self-effacement, the Prime Directive's "build what you will not need to rebuild," and the audit's cross-skill finding "load-bearing items currently named in procedure but not enforced in structure."