Progressive Narrowing

batch: First Iteration/Batch 24

slug: convergence

slug: screening

slug: constraint

slug: threshold

slug: tolerance

slug: closure

slug: satisficing

components:
Option Set
Target Resolution
Narrowing Stage
Filter Sequence
Evidence Requirement
Survivor Criteria
Decision Gate
Diversity Retention Rule
Reopening Rule
Elimination Rationale Record
Comparison Frame
Capacity or Attention Budget
Fallback or Reserve Set
Bias and Fairness Check
Finalist Commitment Rule

mechanisms:
Funnel Process
Successive Screening
Diagnostic Narrowing Protocol
Design Downselection Review
Hiring Shortlist Process
Procurement Shortlisting
Research Hypothesis Elimination
Legal Issue Narrowing
Weighted Scoring Matrix
Candidate Disposition Log

essence_one_line: Narrow a broad option space step by step until a stable choice, design, diagnosis, explanation, or bounded issue set remains.

compression_statement: When too many possibilities prevent action and direct selection would be premature, Progressive Narrowing structures the path from many live possibilities to a justified survivor or finalist set using explicit stages, filters, evidence requirements, survivor criteria, decision gates, diversity-retention guardrails, and reopening rules.

core_intuition: A broad possibility space is useful at the start because it protects against tunnel vision, but it becomes costly when every possibility must be held in attention forever. Progressive Narrowing makes convergence manageable: it removes possibilities only when the stage has enough evidence to justify removal, keeps the surviving set diverse enough to avoid premature closure, and leaves a path for correction when later evidence shows that an earlier filter was wrong.

canonical_formula: broad option set + staged filters + evidence requirements + survivor criteria + traceable elimination + reopening rule => justified survivor or finalist set

structural_problem: A problem begins with many possible options, hypotheses, designs, candidates, explanations, or issues, and the system cannot act well because direct selection is premature while undifferentiated variety is overwhelming.

condition: The option space is too large for full-depth evaluation

description: Every candidate cannot be evaluated with equal depth, so the process needs staged reduction.

condition: Early commitment would be biased or fragile

description: Choosing immediately would privilege familiar, visible, politically favored, or easy-to-measure options.

condition: Different kinds of evidence become available at different stages

description: Cheap eligibility checks, deeper analysis, tests, interviews, prototypes, or confirmatory evidence must be sequenced.

condition: Stakeholders need a defensible trail from broad consideration to final selection

description: The process must show why possibilities advanced, were held, were merged, or were removed.

condition: The process needs convergence without losing the ability to correct mistakes

description: The live set must shrink, but later evidence may require reopening or fallback.

symptom: The same broad list is revisited repeatedly without becoming more tractable

interpretation: The process lacks staged filters or survivor criteria.

symptom: Participants argue over final choice before agreeing what must be ruled out first

interpretation: The process is skipping coarse narrowing and trying to make a final comparison too early.

symptom: Candidates disappear from consideration without recorded reasons

interpretation: Narrowing is happening informally and may be biased, arbitrary, or hard to audit.

symptom: A single favorite option emerges before alternatives have been meaningfully tested

interpretation: The process may be converging prematurely rather than narrowing progressively.

symptom: Too many finalists remain because no filter is decisive enough

interpretation: The criteria may be vague, non-discriminating, or politically unsafe to apply.

symptom: Previously eliminated options keep returning as objections

interpretation: The elimination rationale was weak, poorly recorded, or not trusted.

root_tension: The system needs variety to avoid tunnel vision, but it also needs focus to act. Progressive Narrowing resolves this tension by reducing variety in stages, not all at once, and by tying each reduction to explicit evidence and reviewable criteria.

case: The problem is already narrowed to one live option and only needs stabilization

why_not: Use Convergence Guidance, refinement, validation, or implementation patterns rather than option-space reduction.

case: The main task is proving that regions of a search space cannot improve the result

why_not: Use Search Space Pruning or branch-and-bound style mechanisms; Progressive Narrowing is about staged convergence of live candidates.

case: The purpose is to preserve multiple options rather than reduce them

why_not: Use Option Preservation or staged commitment when continued optionality is the main intervention.

case: The only issue is defining when a process has stabilized enough to stop

why_not: Use Convergence Criteria Design or Termination Condition Design when the option set is not the core problem.

case: All candidates can be evaluated fully at low cost and the comparison is straightforward

why_not: A simple comparison or ranking may be enough; staged narrowing would add unnecessary process.

structural_intervention: Turn an overwhelming possibility space into a staged convergence path: define the live option set and target resolution, sequence filters from coarse to discriminating, attach evidence requirements and survivor criteria to each stage, record eliminations, preserve enough diversity, and define when reopening is allowed.

step: Name the live option set

logic: Make explicit what is currently in scope so that narrowing is visible rather than implicit.

step: Define the target resolution

logic: Clarify whether the process should produce one selected survivor, a finalist set, a diagnosis, a bounded issue list, or a next-stage portfolio.

step: Sequence narrowing stages

logic: Arrange filters so low-cost and high-certainty eliminations happen before expensive or subtle comparisons.

step: Attach evidence requirements

logic: Specify what evidence can advance, hold, eliminate, merge, defer, or reopen a candidate at each stage.

step: Apply survivor criteria

logic: Reduce the set only when criteria are satisfied; distinguish must-pass constraints from comparative preferences.

step: Preserve necessary diversity

logic: Keep enough structurally different candidates alive until evidence justifies stronger convergence.

step: Record elimination rationales

logic: Document why candidates left the live set so later review can distinguish justified convergence from arbitrary loss.

step: Gate commitment or handoff

logic: Convert the survivor or finalist set into action, deeper testing, or a controlled reopening decision.

rule: Do not eliminate a candidate before the stage has enough evidence for that kind of elimination.

purpose: Prevents premature closure and hidden bias.

rule: Early filters should remove clear mismatches; later filters should resolve closer tradeoffs among plausible survivors.

purpose: Keeps the sequence efficient and fair.

rule: When uncertainty is high and stakes are high, retain more diversity or add a reserve set rather than forcing a single survivor.

purpose: Avoids brittle convergence under insufficient evidence.

rule: Every elimination should have a recorded rationale and a known reopening condition or explicit irreversibility justification.

purpose: Makes narrowing reviewable and correctable.

rule: If filters stop discriminating, revise the criteria or gather new evidence rather than repeatedly applying weak screens.

purpose: Prevents bureaucratic narrowing theater.

invariant: Narrowing must remain evidence-sensitive

why_it_matters: Candidates should not disappear because of convenience, fatigue, or politics.

invariant: The survivor set must remain aligned with the target resolution

why_it_matters: A narrowed set that no longer fits the actual decision is false progress.

invariant: Eliminations must be traceable

why_it_matters: Traceability supports fairness, learning, appeal, and reopening.

invariant: Enough variety must survive until evidence justifies convergence

why_it_matters: Premature homogeneity creates local-minimum and groupthink risks.

invariant: Reopening must be possible when later evidence invalidates an earlier filter

why_it_matters: Progressive narrowing should be disciplined, not blindly irreversible.

outcome: A tractable survivor or finalist set

description: The process can focus attention and resources on the candidates most worth deeper action.

outcome: More defensible selection or diagnosis

description: The path from broad consideration to final survivor can be explained and reviewed.

outcome: Reduced cognitive and coordination load

description: Participants no longer need to hold an undifferentiated possibility space in mind.

outcome: Lower risk of arbitrary exclusion

description: Explicit filters and records make hidden or biased narrowing easier to detect.

outcome: Timely convergence without total loss of optionality

description: The process narrows enough to act while preserving fallback or reopening capacity where needed.

prose_essence:
Progressive Narrowing is the intervention pattern for moving from too many live possibilities to a defensible survivor, finalist set, diagnosis, design, or bounded issue set. It does not simply “pick the best” and it does not merely remove whatever looks weak. It creates a staged path of convergence: broad consideration first, coarse filters next, deeper evidence later, and final commitment only after the surviving set has been reduced for reasons that can be explained.

The core idea is that variety and focus are both valuable, but at different moments. At the beginning, a wide option set protects against tunnel vision. As the work proceeds, the same width becomes costly because attention, testing, comparison, and coordination are limited. Progressive Narrowing reduces the live set in stages so the process can converge without pretending that early impressions are final truth.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when a problem begins with many possible options, hypotheses, designs, applicants, vendors, issues, or explanations, and the group cannot responsibly evaluate all of them at full depth. It is especially useful when direct selection would be premature, but holding every possibility open would paralyze action.

It fits situations where different evidence is appropriate at different depths. A first stage may ask whether an option is eligible, safe, plausible, or in scope. A later stage may ask whether it performs well, fits strategy, survives user testing, resolves the diagnosis, or merits commitment. The pattern is also useful where people need to understand why possibilities were removed, not just what survived.

Do not use it when the true intervention is simply preserving options, stabilizing one process, or defining a stop rule. Progressive Narrowing is about governed reduction of a live set.

prose_structural_problem:
The structural problem is excess unresolved possibility. The system has more candidates than it can compare, test, or act on, but the candidates cannot be collapsed safely by intuition alone. Without a staged process, one of two failures tends to occur.

First, the group may never narrow. It revisits the same broad list repeatedly, consumes attention, and postpones action because no stage has authority to remove anything. Second, the group may narrow invisibly. Candidates disappear because someone loses interest, a meeting runs out of time, a familiar option feels safer, or a powerful actor prefers one path. In that case the set shrinks, but the convergence is not trustworthy.

Progressive Narrowing solves this by making reduction explicit, staged, and evidence-sensitive.

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention starts by naming the live option set. What is in scope: designs, diagnoses, vendors, issues, applicants, hypotheses, scenarios, or paths? The set must be broad enough to contain real alternatives and explicit enough to evaluate.

Next, define the target resolution. The process may need one selected survivor, a shortlist, a working diagnosis, a finalist portfolio, or a bounded agenda. The target resolution matters because it determines how narrow the process should become and what evidence is strong enough.

Then sequence the narrowing stages. Early stages should usually remove clear mismatches through cheap, high-confidence filters. Later stages should use deeper evidence to compare plausible survivors. Each stage needs a filter, an evidence requirement, survivor criteria, and a gate that says whether a candidate advances, is held, is eliminated, is merged, is deferred, or is reopened.

The final piece is correction. A good narrowing process records why candidates leave, preserves enough diversity until evidence justifies stronger convergence, and defines when eliminated options can return. Without those safeguards, progressive narrowing becomes premature closure with better paperwork.

prose_key_components:
### Option Set

The option set is the live pool being narrowed. It might contain applicants, design concepts, diagnoses, vendors, research hypotheses, legal issues, or policy alternatives. A good option set is neither hidden nor artificially small. It should include plausible alternatives before the process starts removing them.

### Target Resolution

The target resolution defines what the narrowing process is trying to produce. Sometimes the target is a single selected option. Sometimes it is a shortlist, a diagnosis, a finalist set, or a bounded issue list. Without this component, narrowing can proceed without a shared understanding of what “narrow enough” means.

### Narrowing Stage

A narrowing stage is a bounded level of reduction. Each stage has a purpose: remove ineligible items, test feasibility, compare evidence, surface tradeoffs, or select finalists. Stages keep the process from applying all criteria at once, which often causes premature exclusion or excessive burden.

### Filter Sequence

The filter sequence orders the stages. Early filters should usually be cheap, clear, and safe. Later filters can be more expensive, subtle, and comparative. The sequence matters because a bad early filter can eliminate candidates before the evidence needed to understand them is available.

### Evidence Requirement

An evidence requirement says what must be known before a candidate can advance or be eliminated. In diagnosis, this may be a discriminating test. In hiring, it may be a work sample or structured interview. In design, it may be prototype evidence. This component protects the process from narrowing by preference alone.

### Survivor Criteria

Survivor criteria define what must be true for a candidate to remain live after a stage. They should separate must-pass constraints from comparative preferences. A candidate may fail a safety constraint, pass a feasibility threshold, or remain live because it represents a strategically important alternative.

### Decision Gate

A decision gate turns stage evidence into a visible decision: advance, hold, eliminate, merge, defer, reopen, or commit. The gate prevents informal drift from shrinking the set without anyone owning the decision.

### Diversity Retention Rule

The diversity retention rule preserves enough variation among the survivors to prevent premature sameness. It matters when unconventional options, minority explanations, high-risk edge cases, or radically different designs might be eliminated by filters that favor the familiar.

### Reopening Rule

The reopening rule defines when a previously eliminated candidate can return. New evidence, invalidated assumptions, failed finalists, or evidence of bias may justify reopening. This keeps narrowing from becoming blindly irreversible.

### Elimination Rationale Record

The elimination rationale record documents why candidates were removed. It supports review, fairness, learning, and future correction. If eliminated candidates keep returning as objections, the record may reveal that the earlier rationale was weak or untrusted.

prose_common_mechanisms:
### Funnel Process

A funnel process implements Progressive Narrowing by representing the path from broad intake to shortlist, finalist set, or selected survivor. The funnel is not the archetype by itself. It becomes an implementation only when its stages have evidence requirements, survivor criteria, and reopening rules.

### Successive Screening

Successive screening applies filters one after another. It is useful when a large pool must become tractable. The first screens may remove clear mismatches; later screens use deeper evidence. It implements the archetype when the screens are stage-appropriate and reviewable.

### Diagnostic Narrowing Protocol

A diagnostic narrowing protocol moves from many possible explanations toward a supported diagnosis or cause. It implements Progressive Narrowing by using discriminating evidence to reduce hypotheses while keeping rare or high-consequence alternatives visible until they can be safely ruled out.

### Design Downselection Review

A design downselection review evaluates concepts through feasibility, user evidence, cost, risk, and strategic fit. It implements the archetype in design work by turning a concept portfolio into prototypes, finalists, and eventually a selected design.

### Hiring Shortlist Process

A hiring shortlist process reduces a broad applicant pool through eligibility screens, evidence review, interviews, references, and finalist comparison. It is a mechanism, not the archetype, because the same staged narrowing logic can apply to many kinds of candidate pools.

### Procurement Shortlisting

Procurement shortlisting narrows vendors or bids through compliance, capability, risk, references, due diligence, and tradeoff review. It implements the archetype when the reduction is explicit and auditable rather than based on informal preference.

### Research Hypothesis Elimination

Research hypothesis elimination narrows possible explanations or research directions through prior evidence, feasibility, falsification attempts, and discriminating predictions. It implements the archetype when the live hypothesis set shrinks for evidential reasons.

### Legal Issue Narrowing

Legal issue narrowing reduces broad claims or disputes to the factual and legal issues that remain material and contested. It implements the archetype in a fairness-sensitive setting where scope records and reopening rules matter.

### Weighted Scoring Matrix

A weighted scoring matrix can help compare candidates at a stage, but it should not be confused with the archetype. Scoring does not automatically provide the right option set, sequence, evidence standard, fairness check, or reopening rule.

### Candidate Disposition Log

A candidate disposition log records which candidates advanced, were held, were eliminated, were merged, or were reopened. It implements the traceability part of the archetype and prevents options from disappearing silently.

prose_failure_modes:
Premature narrowing occurs when the process removes candidates before the stage has enough evidence. The mitigation is to match filter strength to evidence quality, preserve diversity, and use false-convergence checks before final commitment.

Hidden bias in filters occurs when criteria encode convenience, familiarity, status, or historical inequity. The mitigation is independent criteria review, fairness checks, appeal paths, and recorded rationales.

Untraceable elimination occurs when candidates disappear without documented reasons. The mitigation is a disposition log and explicit gate decisions.

Filter gaming occurs when actors optimize for the visible criteria without improving underlying fit. The mitigation is to combine observable criteria with deeper evidence, audits, and outcome validation.

Over-standardized comparison occurs when a rubric or scoring matrix flattens meaningful qualitative differences. The mitigation is to separate must-pass criteria from tradeoff judgment and include narrative review.

No reopening path occurs when early mistakes cannot be corrected. The mitigation is to define reopening thresholds and reserve sets before elimination decisions become final.

An endless finalist set occurs when criteria never discriminate or stakeholders avoid hard tradeoffs. The mitigation is to clarify the target resolution, improve evidence, or set a justified finalist capacity.

Predetermined winner theater occurs when the process is designed to make one favored candidate look inevitable. The mitigation is transparent criteria, independent review, and challenge routes.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Progressive Narrowing differs from Search Space Pruning. Search Space Pruning removes regions or branches that are infeasible, dominated, or unlikely to improve the result. Progressive Narrowing stages convergence from a broad live set toward a survivor or finalist set.

It differs from Stage-Gate Progression. Stage gates decide whether a project or workstream advances to the next phase. Progressive Narrowing decides which candidates remain live.

It differs from Option Preservation. Option Preservation keeps alternatives open. Progressive Narrowing reduces alternatives, but it should borrow preservation safeguards when uncertainty remains high.

It differs from Priority-Based Admission. Priority-Based Admission decides what enters scarce capacity. Progressive Narrowing may use admission-like filters, but its central logic is reduction toward a survivor.

It differs from Convergence Guidance. Convergence Guidance steers a process toward a stable target. Progressive Narrowing makes a candidate set converge by reducing it in stages.

It differs from Convergence Criteria Design. Convergence Criteria Design defines when a process is stable enough to stop. Progressive Narrowing defines how a broad set is reduced before a survivor can be accepted.

It also differs from False Convergence Prevention. Progressive Narrowing creates a narrowing path; False Convergence Prevention tests whether the apparent survivor is genuine or an artifact of biased filters, suppressed alternatives, or weak evidence.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In medicine, a clinician starts with a broad differential diagnosis, applies urgency and likelihood filters, orders discriminating tests, and arrives at a working diagnosis while preserving a reopening path for contradictory evidence.

In product design, a team moves from many concepts to a few prototypes and then to one candidate through feasibility checks, user evidence, risk review, and strategic fit.

In hiring, a search committee reduces a large applicant pool through eligibility criteria, structured evidence, interviews, references, and a finalist comparison record.

In procurement, a team narrows vendors through compliance screening, capability review, risk assessment, price negotiation, and due diligence.

In research, a team moves from many plausible hypotheses to a few testable explanations by applying literature review, plausibility checks, measurement feasibility, and discriminating predictions.

In law or policy, a broad dispute or problem agenda is narrowed to the material issues that remain contested and actionable.

prose_non_examples:
A one-shot favorite choice is not Progressive Narrowing. It may be a decision, but it lacks staged reduction and evidence-sensitive survivor criteria.

A mathematical branch-and-bound proof is not this archetype. It is a search-pruning mechanism or archetype because its central logic is proving branches cannot dominate.

A portfolio that keeps all options open is not Progressive Narrowing. It is closer to Option Preservation unless the portfolio is being intentionally reduced.

A phase-gate process for one project is not Progressive Narrowing unless alternative candidates are also being reduced.

A ranking list is not Progressive Narrowing by itself. Ranking may order candidates without justifying why they should advance, be eliminated, or be reopened.

prose_tradeoffs:
Progressive Narrowing trades variety for focus. That trade is necessary, but it must be timed. Reduce too soon and the process becomes premature closure. Reduce too late and the process remains diffuse.

It trades speed for traceability. Records, evidence gates, and fairness checks take time, but they make the narrowed set more defensible.

It trades standardized comparison for contextual judgment. Shared criteria improve consistency, but overly rigid rubrics can miss candidates that are valuable in unusual ways.

It trades closure for reopening. A reopening path protects against error, but too much reopening can make every elimination feel provisional forever.

It trades low-cost screening for deeper evidence. Cheap filters are useful, but they should not be asked to answer questions that require deep evaluation.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
Narrowing must remain evidence-sensitive. Candidates should leave the live set because a stage-specific criterion was met, not because of fatigue, power, convenience, or unspoken preference.

The survivor set must remain aligned with the target resolution. A finalist set that is easy to compare but no longer solves the original problem is not progress.

Eliminations must be traceable. When a candidate leaves, the process should be able to say why, what evidence supported the removal, and what evidence would reopen the decision.

Enough variety must remain until convergence is justified. Premature homogeneity can hide better options, rare diagnoses, unconventional designs, or minority interpretations.

Reopening must remain possible under defined conditions. Progressive narrowing should reduce noise and overload, not create irreversible blindness.

prose_target_outcomes:
The primary outcome is a tractable survivor or finalist set. The process converts overwhelming possibility into a smaller set that can receive deeper attention or support action.

A second outcome is defensible convergence. The group can explain how it moved from broad consideration to final survivor. This is valuable in public decisions, hiring, procurement, diagnosis, research, and design.

A third outcome is reduced cognitive and coordination load. Participants no longer need to debate every possibility at every meeting.

A fourth outcome is lower risk of arbitrary exclusion. Explicit filters and recorded eliminations make hidden narrowing easier to detect and correct.

The final outcome is timely commitment without total loss of correction capacity. The process narrows enough to act while preserving reopening or fallback where uncertainty justifies it.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
Stage granularity is the first tuning dimension. A simple problem may need only broad screen, deep review, and final choice. A high-stakes or complex problem may need more stages so that different kinds of evidence are gathered in the right order.

Filter strictness is the second dimension. Strict early filters reduce load quickly, but they can eliminate candidates on weak evidence. Loose filters preserve variety, but they may leave too many survivors. The stricter the filter, the stronger the evidence should be.

Evidence depth is the third dimension. Early stages often rely on low-cost evidence. Final stages should rely on deeper evidence that actually distinguishes among plausible survivors. A process that never deepens evidence may produce only the appearance of rigor.

Survivor set size is the fourth dimension. Too many survivors preserve overload. Too few survivors create premature closure. The right number depends on stakes, capacity, diversity needs, and the cost of being wrong.

Diversity retention is the fifth dimension. Some processes should retain structurally different candidates even when a familiar option appears stronger. This is important in innovation, diagnosis, safety analysis, and fairness-sensitive selection.

Reopening threshold is the sixth dimension. A low threshold catches mistakes but invites relitigation. A high threshold protects closure but can trap the process in an invalid narrowed set. The threshold should match reversibility and stakes.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
Diagnostic Narrowing applies the archetype to possible explanations, causes, or diagnoses. Its distinctive concern is discriminating evidence: a candidate explanation should not be eliminated simply because another explanation is more familiar.

Design Downselection applies it to design concepts. It narrows a concept portfolio through feasibility, prototypes, user evidence, tradeoffs, and final comparison.

Evidence-Gated Shortlist applies it to large candidate pools such as applicants, proposals, grants, vendors, or admissions. The shortlist is useful only when the evidence trail and fairness checks are strong enough.

Issue Narrowing applies it to claims, agenda items, research questions, or dispute issues. It reduces what must be resolved while keeping scope decisions visible.

Near names include downselection funnel, staged winnowing, successive screening, candidate winnowing, shortlisting, and hypothesis narrowing. Shortlisting, funnel stages, and scoring matrices should usually be treated as mechanisms or components rather than standalone archetypes.

Diagnostic Narrowing

short_definition: Progressively narrows a set of possible diagnoses, causes, or explanations until the remaining explanation is supported enough to guide action.

distinctive_feature: The option set consists of explanations or diagnoses, so each narrowing stage must preserve evidential and causal adequacy rather than merely rank preferences.

distinct_from_parent: The parent applies to any broad option space; this variant focuses on hypotheses where false elimination can misdirect treatment, repair, investigation, or remediation.

still_same_parent_because: The intervention still uses staged filters, survivor criteria, and reopening rules to converge from many possibilities to a justified survivor.

source_primes: convergence hypothesis_testing uncertainty screening

use_when: Several explanations could plausibly account for the observed condition.

use_when: Immediate commitment to one explanation would be unsafe, biased, or premature.

use_when: Evidence can be gathered or ruled out in staged order from broad categories to specific causes.

Hypothesis Set

role: Defines the live explanations that are being narrowed, including mutually exclusive, overlapping, and unknown-cause possibilities.

notes: The set should include enough breadth to avoid anchoring on the first plausible explanation.

component_status: required

Discriminating Evidence Requirement

role: Specifies what evidence can separate one explanation from another at each stage.

notes: Avoids using evidence that confirms many hypotheses equally well.

Reopening Rule

role: Allows previously excluded explanations to return when new evidence invalidates an earlier filter.

notes: Critical because diagnostic evidence can be noisy or delayed.

Differential Diagnosis Table

role: Tracks possible causes, supporting evidence, ruling-out evidence, and next tests.

notes: A medical, technical, or investigative implementation of staged narrowing.

Triage Decision Tree

role: Routes cases through broad safety, urgency, and category filters before finer diagnosis.

notes: A mechanism that narrows while preserving high-risk alternatives.

Root-Cause Elimination Review

role: Reviews which causes were eliminated and whether the evidence was sufficient.

notes: Prevents silent removal of causes that remain plausible.

example_domains:
Medicine
Incident response
Root-cause analysis
Legal investigation
Troubleshooting

domain: Medicine

example: A clinician moves from broad symptom categories to a short differential before ordering confirmatory tests.

example: A reliability team narrows possible outage causes by ruling out infrastructure, release, dependency, and configuration paths.

failure_modes: Anchoring on an early explanation causes the filter sequence to exclude rare but important alternatives.

failure_modes: A noisy test is treated as a decisive rule-out without a reopening path.

Design Downselection

short_definition: Narrows multiple design concepts through staged evidence, constraints, prototypes, and stakeholder tests until one or a few viable designs remain.

distinctive_feature: The filters evaluate prototypes or concepts across multiple dimensions, often preserving a small finalist set before final commitment.

distinct_from_parent: The parent is domain-general; this variant focuses on design tradeoffs, prototypes, user evidence, and feasibility constraints.

still_same_parent_because: The core logic is still staged reduction of a candidate set toward a selected survivor or finalist set.

use_when: A team has generated several possible designs and cannot responsibly choose by preference alone.

use_when: Design alternatives differ across cost, feasibility, usability, risk, and strategic fit.

use_when: A premature single concept would hide tradeoffs or prevent learning from alternatives.

Concept Portfolio

role: Keeps multiple design concepts visible long enough to compare tradeoffs.

notes: Prevents early attachment to one design from collapsing the process.

Evaluation Rubric

role: Defines comparable criteria for evaluating candidate concepts at each narrowing stage.

notes: Should include both must-pass constraints and comparative criteria.

Finalist Comparison Frame

role: Compares surviving options on decisive tradeoffs before final selection.

notes: Useful when several options are viable but differ in risk profile.

Concept Screening Matrix

mechanism_type: template

role: Scores or qualitatively compares concepts against agreed criteria.

notes: A mechanism for implementing design-stage filters.

Prototype Review Gate

role: Uses prototype evidence to decide which concepts advance.

notes: Not the archetype itself; it is one gate inside the narrowing process.

Kill / Keep / Pivot Review

role: Decides whether each concept should be removed, retained, or modified for the next stage.

notes: Useful when design evidence suggests adaptation rather than simple elimination.

example_domains:
Product design
Architecture
Engineering
Service design
Policy design

example: A team moves from ten concepts to three prototypes and then to one release candidate through evidence gates.

example: Several architecture options are downselected through feasibility, safety, cost, and maintainability screens.

failure_modes: Criteria are changed midstream to favor a preferred concept.

failure_modes: The process eliminates unconventional concepts before the evidence has tested their distinctive value.

Evidence-Gated Shortlist

short_definition: Uses explicit evidence requirements and gates to reduce a candidate pool into a defensible shortlist before final comparison.

distinctive_feature: The named artifact is the shortlist, and the intervention is the evidence trail by which candidates reach it.

distinct_from_parent: The parent covers all staged narrowing; this variant emphasizes shortlist governance and traceability.

still_same_parent_because: A shortlist is an intermediate survivor set inside Progressive Narrowing, not a separate intervention logic by itself.

source_primes: screening threshold constraint convergence

use_when: A large candidate pool must be reduced without relying on opaque preference or convenience.

use_when: Stakeholders need to know why candidates advanced or were eliminated.

use_when: Evidence quality varies and must be staged from coarse eligibility to deeper evaluation.

Shortlist Rule

role: Defines how many or what kind of survivors should remain after a stage.

notes: Can be a fixed number, threshold, tier, or capacity-based rule.

Evidence Record

role: Documents the evidence used to advance or eliminate each candidate.

notes: Makes the shortlist reviewable and contestable.

component_type: artifact

Appeal or Recheck Path

role: Allows correction when evidence was missing, misread, or biased.

notes: Prevents shortlisting from becoming an irreversible clerical filter.

Application Screening Rubric

role: Applies transparent criteria to a large applicant or proposal pool.

notes: A mechanism for evidence-gated shortlisting.

Two-Stage Review Panel

role: Uses a broad screen followed by deeper review of surviving candidates.

notes: Implements staged narrowing when expertise or time is limited.

Candidate Disposition Log

mechanism_type: document

role: Records why each candidate advanced, was held, or was removed.

notes: Supports accountability and later review.

example_domains:
Hiring
Procurement
Grants
Admissions
Vendor selection

domain: Hiring

example: A search committee screens applications against must-have criteria before deeper interviews.

domain: Procurement

example: A buyer moves from all submitted proposals to a shortlist using eligibility, capability, and risk evidence.

failure_modes: Coarse filters encode bias and prevent qualified candidates from reaching deeper review.

failure_modes: The shortlist rule is chosen for administrative convenience rather than decision quality.

Issue Narrowing

short_definition: Progressively narrows a dispute, case, policy problem, or negotiation agenda from many live issues to the issues that remain decisive.

distinctive_feature: The candidate set consists of issues, claims, or questions rather than solution options.

distinct_from_parent: The parent narrows option spaces generally; this variant narrows the scope of what must be resolved.

still_same_parent_because: It still relies on staged filters, survivor criteria, and reopening conditions to converge toward a manageable remainder.

source_primes: convergence constraint closure procedural_fairness

use_when: A dispute or inquiry contains too many claims, questions, facts, or interpretations to resolve all at once.

use_when: Some issues can be eliminated, consolidated, sequenced, or treated as non-decisive.

use_when: Parties need transparent boundaries around what remains in scope.

Issue Inventory

role: Lists the claims, questions, facts, or agenda items currently in scope.

notes: Should distinguish resolved, deferred, eliminated, and live issues.

Scope Filter

role: Determines whether an issue is relevant, decisive, admissible, or ripe for the current stage.

notes: The filter should not erase rights, evidence, or stakeholder concerns without justification.

component_type: criterion

Resolution Status Record

role: Tracks which issues were resolved, consolidated, deferred, or excluded.

notes: Prevents confusion about what the narrowing process actually settled.

Issues List

role: Records live, resolved, and excluded issues for review.

notes: Common in legal, negotiation, and policy settings.

Agenda Convergence Workshop

role: Moves participants from a broad agenda to the few issues that require decision.

notes: A social implementation of Progressive Narrowing.

Claim Scope Review

role: Checks whether a claim or issue is in scope for the current decision.

notes: A mechanism that must be governed by fairness rules.

example_domains:
Law
Negotiation
Policy design
Strategic planning
Research scoping

domain: Law

example: A case narrows from many factual and legal claims to the claims that remain disputed.

domain: Policy

example: A working group converts a broad problem statement into a short set of decision questions.

failure_modes: Narrowing becomes exclusion of inconvenient issues rather than resolution of irrelevant ones.

failure_modes: Deferred issues are forgotten and later reappear as unresolved conflict.

near_names:
Downselection Funnel
Staged Winnowing
Successive Screening
Shortlisting
Candidate Winnowing
Hypothesis Narrowing


Progressive Stressor Conditioning

type: archetype

source: generated

batch: Batch 08

canonical_family: Intertemporal Choice & Commitment

aliases: Short-Term Cost / Long-Term Gain Conditioning

alias_records: Short-Term Cost / Long-Term Gain Conditioning

source_primes: stressor_induced_adaptation adaptation adaptive_capacity feedback learning dose_response_relationship threshold boundedness recovery

slug: adaptation

slug: feedback

slug: learning

slug: boundedness

slug: recovery

slug: antifragility

slug: resilience

slug: robustness

slug: homeostasis

slug: interleaving

slug: consent

slug: risk

slug: reserve

slug: variability

slug: perturbation

slug: chaos

slug: turbulence

components: Baseline Performance and Capacity Measure

mechanisms:
Progressive Overload Protocol
Desirable Difficulty Task Design
Hormetic Microdose Protocol
Graduated Exposure Ladder
Deload or Recovery Cycle
Pre/Post Capacity Assessment
Fatigue and Maladaptation Dashboard
Spaced Retrieval and Interleaving Plan
After-Action Gain Harvest
Consented Challenge Contract

essence_one_line: Use bounded, progressively calibrated difficulty to trade temporary performance loss for durable capacity gain, with recovery and stop rules preventing overload.

compression_statement: Progressive Stressor Conditioning is the solution pattern for situations where making the present task easier would preserve short-term performance but weaken long-term capacity. The archetype defines the capacity to build, chooses a stressor that is challenging but not destructive, calibrates dose and progression, accepts a visible short-run performance cost, captures feedback, provides recovery and consolidation, tests delayed transfer, and installs stop or deload rules. It operationalizes stressor-induced adaptation across learning, physiology, ecology, operations, and organizations without romanticizing harm or unmanaged adversity.

core_intuition: Some systems grow stronger only when they work against manageable resistance. But resistance is useful only inside a window: too little is inert, too much causes injury or avoidance, and the right dose must be followed by feedback and recovery. The pattern turns strain into training instead of letting strain become damage.

canonical_formula: target_capacity + bounded_stressor_dose + short_run_cost_marker + adaptation_feedback + recovery_interval + progressive_load_rule + transfer_test + stop_or_deload_rule -> durable_capacity_gain

structural_problem: A person, organism, team, system, or ecosystem needs durable capacity, but current design optimizes for immediate ease, smooth performance, or complete protection from difficulty. As a result, capacity fails to consolidate, transfer is weak, fragility accumulates, or future demands exceed what the system has practiced adapting to. The opposite failure is also common: stress is imposed without dose control, recovery, consent, or measurement, producing damage rather than adaptation.

trigger_conditions: Immediate performance is being mistaken for durable learning, strength, tolerance, resilience, or transfer.

trigger_conditions: The system can adapt to bounded challenge through feedback, repair, consolidation, or structural change.

trigger_conditions: There is a plausible dose window where stress is difficult enough to signal adaptation but not so intense that it causes injury, trauma, collapse, or disengagement.

trigger_conditions: Capacity gains require repeated exposure, variation, progression, and recovery rather than one-time instruction or protection.

trigger_conditions: Stakeholders need to justify temporary performance loss, discomfort, slower acquisition, or local inefficiency as part of a governed long-term capacity strategy.

trigger_conditions: The current environment is overprotected, under-practiced, brittle, or optimized for easy metrics.

trigger_conditions: There is risk that leaders, teachers, coaches, or managers will misuse stress rhetoric to justify chronic overload or coercion.

symptoms: Learners perform well during easy practice but forget quickly or fail to transfer to new contexts.

symptoms: A team succeeds under routine load but breaks down when demand, ambiguity, or incidents increase.

symptoms: Training, rehearsal, or onboarding avoids realistic difficulty because it lowers short-term scores or satisfaction.

symptoms: People describe hardship as growth while ignoring recovery, consent, injury signals, or unequal burden.

symptoms: A system repeatedly recovers to baseline without retaining new capacity.

symptoms: Difficulty is escalated randomly rather than using baseline, dose, progression, and recovery signals.

symptoms: Stressors create avoidance, fatigue, brittleness, or learned helplessness instead of durable improvement.

root_tension: The stressor that damages short-term performance may be exactly what builds long-term capacity, but only if it is bounded, sensed, recovered from, and converted into retained adaptation.

anti_signatures: The goal is only to remove accumulated pressure before rupture; use controlled_stress_relief.

anti_signatures: The activity is a one-off probe to reveal hidden weakness; use perturbation_testing or chaos_exposure_testing unless repeated adaptation is designed.

anti_signatures: The distinctive claim is convex gain from volatility, option-like upside, or antifragility; use convex_exposure_gain_design unless dose-recovery conditioning is the central intervention.

anti_signatures: The stressor is unbounded, coercive, traumatic, unethical, nonconsensual, or outside the system’s recovery capacity.

anti_signatures: There is no credible way to measure durable capacity, delayed retention, transfer, tolerance, or adaptation.

anti_signatures: The main problem is unnecessary burden or overload; reduce load rather than preserving difficulty.

anti_signatures: Short-term performance loss would create unacceptable safety, equity, legal, or welfare risk.

structural_intervention: Design a governed challenge-recovery loop: define the capacity to build, establish baseline and safety boundaries, select a bounded stressor, calibrate dose, expose the system with feedback, preserve the expected short-term performance cost, provide recovery and consolidation, progressively adjust load, test durable transfer, and stop or deload when adaptation turns into damage.

action_logic: Name the durable capacity being built: recall, strength, tolerance, coordination, recovery speed, ecological renewal, incident readiness, or adaptive reserve.

action_logic: Measure baseline performance and capacity before exposure so later gains are not confused with selection effects or endurance under strain.

action_logic: Select stressor classes that are relevant to the target capacity and exclude stressors that are merely punitive, unsafe, humiliating, or unrelated.

action_logic: Define the dose window across intensity, duration, frequency, complexity, novelty, realism, and recovery time.

action_logic: Make the expected short-run performance cost explicit so temporary struggle is not mistaken for failure or hidden as a side effect.

action_logic: Instrument feedback signals: performance, fatigue, pain, avoidance, error type, retention, transfer, morale, injury, recovery state, and systemic spillover.

action_logic: Schedule recovery and consolidation before escalating the next dose.

action_logic: Progress load only when evidence shows adaptation rather than mere survival.

action_logic: Vary stressors enough to prevent overfitting while maintaining continuity with the target capacity.

action_logic: Test delayed retention or transfer after recovery, not only immediate performance during exposure.

action_logic: Apply stop, deload, or regression rules when signals show overload, injury, maladaptation, inequitable burden, or diminishing returns.

action_logic: Record retained gains and maintenance dose so the capacity persists after the intervention.

decision_rules: Do not add stress until the target capacity and safety boundary are explicit.

decision_rules: If immediate performance is the only metric, add delayed and transfer measures before judging the intervention.

decision_rules: If stress lowers performance but does not improve delayed capacity, reduce, vary, or replace the stressor.

decision_rules: If fatigue, injury, avoidance, or error severity rises faster than adaptation, deload or stop.

decision_rules: If the population is heterogeneous, calibrate dose individually rather than imposing a uniform challenge.

decision_rules: If consent, autonomy, or protective oversight is absent, reject or redesign the exposure.

decision_rules: If the stressor mainly reveals weakness rather than building capacity, route findings to testing or repair archetypes.

decision_rules: If capacity gains depend on recovery, protect recovery time as part of the intervention, not as optional slack.

decision_rules: If burden and benefit fall on different groups, perform equity review before continuing.

invariant: Capacity target is explicit

why_it_matters: Stress cannot be productive unless it is linked to a specific future capability.

invariant: Dose remains bounded

why_it_matters: Beyond the window, the same stressor becomes destructive.

invariant: Short-run cost is visible

why_it_matters: The intervention depends on distinguishing temporary performance loss from failure.

invariant: Feedback and recovery are required

why_it_matters: Adaptation occurs through sensed strain, repair, consolidation, and adjustment.

invariant: Progression follows evidence

why_it_matters: Escalating difficulty on a calendar alone produces overtraining or stagnation.

invariant: Transfer and durability are tested

why_it_matters: The goal is long-term capacity, not apparent toughness during exposure.

invariant: Safety, consent, and burden boundaries hold

why_it_matters: The archetype must not justify coercive stress, trauma, or inequitable overload.

expected_outcomes: Durable capacity improves even when immediate practice performance temporarily declines.

expected_outcomes: Learners, teams, organisms, or systems gain tolerance, transfer, readiness, strength, or adaptive reserve.

expected_outcomes: Difficulty is calibrated rather than randomly imposed or avoided.

expected_outcomes: Recovery becomes part of the design, reducing burnout and injury.

expected_outcomes: Decision-makers can distinguish productive struggle from overload, punishment, or chaos theater.

expected_outcomes: Future challenges become easier to meet because previous bounded stress was converted into retained capability.

Desirable Difficulty Learning Design

short_definition: A learning variant that intentionally makes practice harder now to improve long-term retention, transfer, and flexible recall.

distinctive_feature: Uses temporary learning difficulty as the adaptation stimulus.

distinct_from_parent: Narrower education and cognition emphasis on retention, retrieval, spacing, and transfer.

still_same_parent_because: It follows the same dose, recovery, feedback, and durable-capacity logic.

use_when: Immediate training performance is a poor proxy for long-term retention or transfer.

use_when: Learners can tolerate effortful retrieval, spacing, interleaving, or generation with adequate feedback and support.

example: A course uses spaced retrieval and interleaving even though students feel less fluent during practice.

failure_modes:
confusing frustration with learning
removing scaffolds too quickly
measuring only immediate performance

Progressive Overload Capacity Building

short_definition: A training and operations variant that raises load gradually to build strength, endurance, skill, throughput, or tolerance.

distinctive_feature: Makes progressive load increase and deload cycles the center of the intervention.

distinct_from_parent: Narrower emphasis on load progression rather than all productive stressor forms.

still_same_parent_because: It preserves bounded dose, adaptation feedback, recovery, and durability testing.

use_when: Capacity can increase through repeated challenge followed by recovery.

use_when: The system has measurable load, fatigue, performance, and recovery signals.

example: A support team gradually increases incident-simulation complexity only after recovery and runbook improvements.

failure_modes: treating endurance under strain as durable capacity

Hormetic Adaptation Design

short_definition: A dose-response variant in which sub-harmful exposure triggers compensatory strengthening while higher exposure becomes harmful.

distinctive_feature: Explicitly centers non-monotonic dose response and toxicity boundaries.

distinct_from_parent: Narrower biological, ecological, or toxicological emphasis on hormetic curves.

still_same_parent_because: The same bounded-stressor-to-capacity-gain pattern applies.

use_when: The response curve is plausibly biphasic: too little exposure is inert, bounded exposure strengthens, and high exposure harms.

use_when: Domain expertise can specify safe dose windows and contraindications.

example: A restoration project uses low-intensity disturbance within known tolerance windows rather than suppressing all disturbance.

failure_modes: unsafe extrapolation from hormesis rhetoric

Challenge-Recovery Team Conditioning

short_definition: A team or organization variant that uses bounded simulations, drills, or stretch assignments with recovery and learning capture to build collective capacity.

distinctive_feature: Applies the pattern to collective routines, coordination, and operational readiness.

distinct_from_parent: Narrower scale emphasis on teams and organizations rather than individuals or biological systems.

still_same_parent_because: It still uses bounded stressor exposure, feedback, recovery, and durable capacity measurement.

use_when: Teams need readiness for higher demand, uncertainty, or incidents but can train under bounded conditions.

use_when: Psychological safety and consent protections are strong enough to avoid coercive overload.

example: A team runs progressively harder game days and converts findings into runbook and automation changes.

failure_modes:
stress theater
hero culture
uncompensated burden on frontline staff

near_names: Short-Term Cost / Long-Term Gain Conditioning


Property Rights Bundle Governance

batch: Batch 07

aliases:
Resource Entitlement Bundle Governance
Ownership Bundle Design
Property Regime Stewardship
Exclusive Entitlement Governance
Resource Rights Architecture
Bundle-of-Rights Governance
Use Exclusion Transfer Rights Design
Property Boundary and Remedy Design
Title and Entitlement Governance
Resource Claim Stewardship

slug: boundary

slug: governance

slug: authority

slug: accountability

slug: contract

slug: externality

slug: decision

slug: allocation

slug: internalization

slug: legitimacy

slug: sovereignty

slug: equity

slug: scarcity

slug: institution

slug: role

slug: formalization

slug: transformation

essence_one_line: When access to a resource must be stable, enforceable, and transferable, define the property-rights bundle—use, exclusion, transfer, income, stewardship duties, limits, and remedies—rather than treating ownership as a single undifferentiated claim.

compression_statement: Property Rights Bundle Governance treats property as a structured bundle of enforceable entitlements and duties attached to a resource. The archetype identifies the resource boundary, right holders, duty bearers, permitted uses, exclusion powers, transfer rules, encumbrances, public-interest limits, externality obligations, dispute forums, remedy paths, and revision triggers. It prevents vague ownership claims from hiding conflicts among access, control, alienation, benefit, stewardship, and accountability.

core_intuition: Property works when everyone can tell who may do what with which resource, who must refrain, who may transfer or encumber claims, what duties run with the resource, and what happens when claims conflict. The useful move is to unpack ownership into separate sticks in a bundle, then govern each stick with boundaries, records, enforcement, exceptions, and repair.

canonical_formula: property_rights_bundle = resource_boundary + holder_registry + entitlements(use|exclude|transfer|income|modify) + duties + limits + remedies + revision_rules

structural_problem: A resource is governed by vague, overlapping, unenforced, overexclusive, underexclusive, or misallocated claims. Participants speak of ownership or rights as if they were singular, while actual use, exclusion, transfer, benefit, stewardship duties, liability, access exceptions, and public-interest limits are contested or hidden. The result can be conflict, underinvestment, overuse, exclusion, holdout power, anti-commons fragmentation, free riding, externalized harm, or illegitimate dispossession.

condition: A resource has multiple potential users, claimants, duty bearers, or affected parties.

notes: The bundle must separate access, use, exclusion, transfer, benefit, and obligation.

condition: Ownership is asserted but the specific entitlement is unclear.

notes: Clarify which stick in the bundle is being claimed.

condition: Actors need stable expectations before investing labor, care, capital, knowledge, or stewardship in a resource.

notes: Unstable entitlements reduce maintenance and long-term commitment.

condition: A right to exclude conflicts with public access, basic needs, equity, environmental constraints, or shared infrastructure.

notes: Limits and exceptions become central.

condition: Overlapping or fragmented rights create holdouts, veto points, anti-commons effects, or transaction-cost barriers.

notes: Consolidation, clearance, or compulsory coordination may be needed.

condition: Open access, weak exclusion, or weak contribution rules create free riding, depletion, pollution, or underprovision.

notes: This is the commons route through the parent pattern.

condition: Transfer, inheritance, licensing, leasing, or delegation creates uncertainty about what moves with the claim.

notes: Title chain and encumbrance records are required.

condition: Externalities show that the claimed entitlement lets one party impose costs outside the bundle.

notes: Duties and liability must be internalized.

symptoms: People invoke ownership without specifying use, exclusion, transfer, benefit, or duty rights.

symptoms: Two actors both believe they have legitimate control over the same resource use.

symptoms: Users underinvest because they cannot rely on future access or benefit.

symptoms: Rights are so fragmented that beneficial use requires too many permissions.

symptoms: The right to exclude is used to create rent extraction or block socially necessary access.

symptoms: Open access invites overuse, degradation, or free riding.

symptoms: Licenses, leases, easements, or data-sharing agreements are misunderstood as total ownership.

symptoms: Disputes focus on moral claims because title, boundary, and remedies are unclear.

root_tension: Property rights coordinate investment and stewardship by creating durable exclusion and control, but the same exclusivity can create domination, exclusion, rent seeking, externalities, fragmentation, and underuse. The bundle must be strong enough to support reliance and weak enough to remain accountable to duties, limits, and public-interest constraints.

anti_signatures: The issue is only temporary role-based access to a system; use least_privilege_access_design.

anti_signatures: The issue is only managing a shared common-pool resource; use commons_governance unless the property-rights bundle itself is the design object.

anti_signatures: The issue is only who can decide inside an organization; use decision_rights_clarification.

anti_signatures: The issue is only boundary crossing without durable resource entitlements; use boundary_permeability_control.

anti_signatures: The resource is intentionally unowned, nonexclusive, and governed by open-access norms that do not require enforceable entitlements.

structural_intervention: Decompose the property claim into a rights-and-duties bundle, define the resource boundary and holder registry, specify permitted uses and exclusion powers, mark transferability and encumbrances, record public-interest and externality constraints, create enforcement and remedy paths, and install review triggers for conflict, fragmentation, inequity, underuse, or changed conditions.

action_logic: Identify the resource or resource stream and draw a reviewable boundary around it.

action_logic: Identify right holders, duty bearers, affected outsiders, and governing authority.

action_logic: Unbundle the claim into access, use, exclusion, management, income, transfer, modification, destruction, stewardship, and liability sticks.

action_logic: Define whether each stick is exclusive, shared, conditional, revocable, time-limited, transferable, inheritable, divisible, or encumbered.

action_logic: Record title, provenance, licenses, leases, liens, easements, obligations, and public-interest limits.

action_logic: Bind rights to enforcement, remedy, appeal, compensation, and dispute-resolution forums.

action_logic: Test for commons failure, anti-commons fragmentation, externality leakage, inequitable exclusion, and rent-seeking capture.

action_logic: Create amendment, expiration, reversion, redistribution, consolidation, or public-use pathways when the bundle no longer fits.

decision_rules: Do not treat ownership as a single yes/no status when different sticks in the bundle can be separated.

decision_rules: Grant exclusion only to the scope needed to support reliance, stewardship, privacy, safety, or investment.

decision_rules: Attach duties to rights when resource use can impose externalities or degrade shared conditions.

decision_rules: Use common or shared rights when exclusion is impractical, unfair, or destructive of collective value.

decision_rules: Use transfer restrictions when alienation would undermine stewardship, dignity, community survival, safety, or public function.

decision_rules: Use consolidation or clearance when fragmented veto rights create anti-commons underuse.

decision_rules: Use public-interest limits when private exclusion blocks legally or ethically protected access.

target_invariants: Resource boundaries and entitlement scopes are explicit.

target_invariants: Right holders and duty bearers are identifiable.

target_invariants: Use, exclusion, transfer, benefit, and duty rights can be distinguished.

target_invariants: Enforcement and remedies are tied to the specific entitlement violated.

target_invariants: Externalities and public-interest limits are not hidden outside the bundle.

target_invariants: Records are reliable enough to support transfer, dispute resolution, and investment.

target_invariants: Commons and anti-commons failure modes are monitored.

target_invariants: Revision pathways exist when the property regime becomes illegitimate or unfit.

expected_outcomes: Fewer conflicts caused by vague ownership claims.

expected_outcomes: More reliable investment, maintenance, and stewardship incentives.

expected_outcomes: Clearer access, exclusion, transfer, and remedy expectations.

expected_outcomes: Reduced free riding, externality leakage, and anti-commons fragmentation.

expected_outcomes: More legitimate balancing of private control, public interest, and shared-resource governance.

expected_outcomes: Better records for title, license, encumbrance, and responsibility.

Exclusive Private Property Bundle

variant_type: subtype

short_definition: A property regime in which a defined holder receives strong exclusion, use, transfer, and benefit rights over a resource subject to duties and limits.

distinctive_feature: Strong exclusion and transferability are central.

distinct_from_parent: It is the private-exclusive branch of the general property-rights bundle.

still_same_parent_because: It still decomposes ownership into sticks with limits, duties, records, and remedies.

use_when: Stable private control is needed for investment, privacy, maintenance, or exchange.

use_when: The main risks are overexclusion, externalities, or illegitimate acquisition.

failure_modes: Private control becomes monopoly, enclosure, or unaccountable rent extraction.

Common-Pool Property Bundle

short_definition: A shared-resource rights bundle that grants access and use under contribution, monitoring, restraint, and sanction duties.

distinctive_feature: Rights are shared but not unmanaged.

distinct_from_parent: It is the commons branch of the broader entitlement architecture.

still_same_parent_because: It still defines use, access, exclusion, duties, enforcement, and remedies.

use_when: A shared resource can be depleted or neglected by individually rational users.

use_when: Exclusion is partial, collective, or governed by membership rules.

failure_modes: Rules fail to prevent overuse or free riding.

name: Intellectual or Abstract Work Rights Bundle

short_definition: A rights bundle over abstract works, information goods, designs, symbols, or inventions where copying is easy and exclusion depends on law, contract, or technical control.

distinctive_feature: The resource is nonrival or cheaply replicable, so exclusivity is institutional rather than physical.

distinct_from_parent: It is a resource-type branch with special public-good and copying dynamics.

still_same_parent_because: It still governs use, exclusion, transfer, benefit, duties, limits, and remedies.

use_when: Rights concern copying, licensing, attribution, derivative work, access, or royalties.

use_when: Nonrival use and public-good benefits must be balanced with incentives.

failure_modes: Overbroad rights block follow-on innovation or public access.

Anti-Commons Fragmentation Repair

short_definition: Repair of property regimes where too many exclusion or veto rights prevent beneficial use.

distinctive_feature: The failure is over-fragmented exclusion, not underprotected property.

distinct_from_parent: It is the fragmentation-failure branch of property-rights governance.

still_same_parent_because: It revises the same bundle of exclusion, transfer, use, and remedy sticks.

use_when: Needed action requires many permissions.

use_when: Holdouts, licensing thickets, or fragmented titles block coordination.

failure_modes: Clearance becomes coerced consolidation or erases legitimate minority claims.

Stewardship-Burdened Property Bundle

short_definition: A property regime in which use and exclusion rights are explicitly burdened by care, restoration, access, reporting, or non-waste duties.

distinctive_feature: Duties are inseparable from the entitlement.

distinct_from_parent: It emphasizes the duty-bearing side of the property-rights bundle.

still_same_parent_because: The rights and duties remain part of the same enforceable bundle.

use_when: Resource use can harm others, future users, ecosystems, or shared infrastructure.

use_when: Rights must carry duties rather than only powers.


Proportion / Scale Calibration

batch: Batch 23

aliases:
relative sizing calibration
dimensional harmony design
compositional scale tuning
ratio-based size design
proportional relationship design

related_primes: color_harmony juxtaposition attention emphasis hierarchy rhythm pattern_in_design affordance

slug: scale

slug: composition

slug: perspective

slug: juxtaposition

slug: attention

slug: emphasis

slug: hierarchy

slug: rhythm

slug: affordance

components: Material, Structural, and Manufacturing Constraint

mechanisms: Responsive Typographic and Interface Scale

essence_one_line: Tune relative size relationships so importance, usability, fit, and emotional effect are correctly perceived across bodies, media, materials, and contexts.

compression_statement: Define the use and perceptual frame; inventory dimensional relationships; set a bounded ratio and module system; anchor it to hierarchy, bodies, material and structural constraints, viewing conditions, and accessibility; prototype across scales; govern breakpoints and exceptions; translate across contexts; monitor outcomes and drift.

core_intuition: Size is relational and contextual. A dimension becomes meaningful through comparison with bodies, neighboring elements, use, medium, distance, material, and cultural expectation. Coherence needs a grammar, while fit and expression need tested exceptions.

canonical_formula: effective_proportion = reference_frame + relative_size_grammar + human_and_material_constraints + perceptual_hierarchy + multiscale_testing + bounded_exception + translation_and_drift_control

structural_problem: Elements are sized independently or by inherited ratios without a controlled relation to hierarchy, use, bodies, structure, viewing distance, medium, or cross-context translation. The result may look harmonious in one artifact while becoming illegible, awkward, unsafe, wasteful, or emotionally wrong elsewhere.

trigger_conditions: Relative dimensions communicate importance, fit, hierarchy, identity, or emotional tone.

trigger_conditions: A design must move across bodies, devices, distances, sites, products, or fabrication processes.

trigger_conditions: Teams repeatedly hand-tune sizes and create inconsistent local exceptions.

trigger_conditions: A formal ratio system conflicts with content, accessibility, structure, or use.

trigger_conditions: Scale exaggeration or compression is central to interpretation and needs explicit safeguards.

symptoms: Large elements dominate beyond their intended priority.

symptoms: Components feel unrelated even when individually well designed.

symptoms: A mobile, model, or print translation preserves numbers but loses usability and hierarchy.

symptoms: Structures or products look elegant but do not fit bodies, materials, joints, or maintenance access.

symptoms: Breakpoints accumulate without an explainable scale grammar.

symptoms: Exceptions become the norm and dimensional tokens stop predicting implementation.

root_tension: A consistent proportion grammar creates coherence and efficient reuse, but real contexts differ in body, medium, material, content, distance, structure, symbolism, and accessibility. Too much uniformity creates misfit; too much local freedom creates drift.

anti_signatures: The task is to scale response intensity with input magnitude; use proportional_response_design.

anti_signatures: The task is solely arranging attention and reading order without a dimensional lifecycle; use compositional_attention_design.

anti_signatures: The task is testing whether behavior remains invariant under rescaling; use scale_invariance_testing.

anti_signatures: The task is statistical magnitude normalization; use effect_size_standardization.

anti_signatures: The task is limiting the vocabulary to primitive forms; use geometric_primitives_vocabulary_constraint.

structural_intervention: Treat relative size as a governed system of reference frames, semantic roles, ratio families, physical and perceptual constraints, breakpoints, exceptions, prototypes, translation rules, and outcome monitoring rather than isolated dimension choices.

action_logic: Define users, setting, task, medium, viewing distance, and desired perceptual or functional effect.

action_logic: Inventory elements, dimensional axes, dependencies, units, and current values.

action_logic: Select a base module and bounded ratio ladder appropriate to content and constraints.

action_logic: Map hierarchy, grouping, emphasis, and unity to controlled size contrasts.

action_logic: Anchor dimensions to diverse bodies, reach, clearance, legibility, and assistive use.

action_logic: Apply material, structural, manufacturing, assembly, and maintenance limits.

action_logic: Model viewing distance, resolution, perspective, motion, and medium conditions.

action_logic: Define breakpoints where configuration must change rather than continue scaling.

action_logic: Prototype competing systems at target, edge, and cross-context scales.

action_logic: Record expressive or technical exceptions with purpose and compensating controls.

action_logic: Translate semantic size roles across media and sites instead of multiplying blindly.

action_logic: Monitor fit, interpretation, accessibility, exception frequency, and scale drift after release.

decision_rules: A ratio is a starting grammar, not evidence that a dimension is appropriate.

decision_rules: Body, safety, accessibility, structural, and required-legibility floors override aesthetic ratio purity.

decision_rules: Use the smallest contrast that reliably communicates hierarchy without suppressing necessary subordinate information.

decision_rules: Introduce a breakpoint when continuous scaling breaks layout, task, structure, content, or perception.

decision_rules: Validate apparent scale from consequential viewpoints, not only measured dimensions.

decision_rules: Every exception must state the relationship it changes, the reason, and the conditions under which it remains valid.

decision_rules: Cross-context translation preserves semantic role and outcome before nominal ratio.

target_invariants: Critical relationships remain explainable through a reference frame and intended effect.

target_invariants: Dimensions are unit-consistent and linked to feasible body, material, structural, and production conditions.

target_invariants: Required legibility, operability, access, and safe clearance are never traded away for formal harmony.

target_invariants: Hierarchy remains perceivable without making subordinate required content unusable.

target_invariants: Cross-context changes preserve semantic roles and document deliberate losses.

target_invariants: Exceptions remain visible and scale drift is reviewed.

expected_outcomes: More coherent and interpretable relative sizing.

expected_outcomes: Better human fit, accessibility, legibility, and physical usability.

expected_outcomes: Fewer arbitrary dimension overrides and breakpoint patches.

expected_outcomes: More reliable translation across devices, products, models, sites, and distances.

expected_outcomes: Stronger alignment among visual effect, structure, material, manufacture, and maintenance.

expected_outcomes: Intentional expressive scale with clearer safety and interpretation boundaries.

prose_failure_modes:
**Ratio fetishism.** A famous or neat ratio substitutes for context and evidence. Treat the ratio as one candidate grammar and compare alternatives against use, perception, accessibility, structure, and material.

**Blind uniform scaling.** Every dimension is multiplied for a new medium. Preserve semantic roles, introduce breakpoints, and retest legibility, fit, content density, and hierarchy.

**Average-body bias.** A nominal figure stands in for diverse users. Use ranges, assistive scenarios, adjustment, and representative trials.

**Hierarchy overload.** Size compounds with position, weight, color, and motion until one element overwhelms context. Compare matched alternatives and reduce redundant salience.

**Unit and dimension error.** Nominal, actual, linear, area, volume, and apparent size become confused. Control semantics, conversion, precision, tolerance, and source of truth.

**Model-to-reality collapse.** A screenshot, render, or maquette conceals optics, bodies, material thickness, load, assembly, and aging. Require target-size and environmental evidence.

**Breakpoint patchwork.** Local fixes accumulate until no common system remains. Tie transitions to explicit discontinuities and audit exception frequency.

**Expressive overreach.** Monumentality or miniaturization becomes spectacle, intimidation, deception, or hazard. Test meaning with multiple users and viewpoints and preserve safety boundaries.

**Scale drift.** New content, devices, products, or sites keep nominal tokens while outcomes degrade. Monitor actual implementations and revise the grammar or translation map.

prose_non_examples:
Doubling a response because the triggering input doubled is `proportional_response_design`, even if the mapping uses a scale factor.

Applying the golden ratio to a rectangle without defining context, outcome, constraints, prototypes, exceptions, and translation is a mechanism choice, not the full archetype.

Choosing one larger heading in an otherwise unmanaged document is a local styling decision unless it participates in a reusable hierarchy and scale system.

Converting effects into standard deviations, risk ratios, or common-language magnitudes is `effect_size_standardization`.

Testing whether a physical or computational rule behaves the same after enlargement is `scale_invariance_testing`.

Restricting a design to circles, squares, and lines is `geometric_primitives_vocabulary_constraint`; proportion may support that pattern but does not define its vocabulary.

prose_tradeoffs:
Coherence competes with local fit. A strong modular grammar reduces arbitrary work and supports reuse, but edge contexts may need departure. Govern exceptions instead of pretending one formula fits all.

Hierarchy competes with equality of access. Large contrast makes priority obvious while shrinking supporting information or controls. Use multiple cues carefully and protect necessary minimums.

Compactness competes with body diversity, legibility, and repair access. A visibly elegant object can impose hidden strain or exclusion. Treat accommodation as design evidence, not late compliance.

Responsiveness competes with simplicity. Fluid scales and breakpoints preserve outcomes across media but increase code, documentation, testing, and drift risk. Use the fewest transitions that correspond to real discontinuities.

Parametric consistency competes with interpretability. Models coordinate dependent dimensions quickly but can propagate a wrong assumption. Expose constraints, units, and overrides and test boundary outputs.

Monumentality and miniature intimacy compete with resource, safety, truthful judgment, and surrounding context. Expressive scale should be intentional and proportionate to its consequences.

Visual-Hierarchy Proportion Calibration

short_definition: Tune relative element sizes so attention and reading order express the intended information hierarchy.

distinctive_feature: Perceived importance and reading order are the main calibration outcomes.

distinct_from_parent: Makes visual salience rather than physical fit or structural relation primary.

still_same_parent_because: It uses the same reference frame, ratio system, multiscale tests, exceptions, and drift monitoring.

source_primes: proportion_scale composition emphasis

use_when: A composition must communicate priority quickly.

use_when: Size is one of several interacting hierarchy cues.

example: Compare headline, summary, evidence, and annotation sizes while holding color and position constant.

failure_modes: Subordinate content becomes inaccessible

Human-Scale and Ergonomic Fit

short_definition: Calibrate dimensions and ratios to diverse bodies, reach, posture, circulation, perception, and assistive use.

distinctive_feature: Body relation and usable accommodation dominate the evidence.

distinct_from_parent: Makes anthropometric variability and physical interaction central.

still_same_parent_because: Relative sizing, constraints, translation, testing, and exceptions remain the organizing logic.

source_primes: proportion_scale scale affordance

use_when: People physically occupy or manipulate the design.

use_when: Exclusion or injury can result from poor dimensional fit.

example: Tune seat, table, aisle, handrail, and sightline relations across diverse bodies and mobility devices.

failure_modes: Aesthetic ratios override safe clearance

name: Responsive Cross-Medium Scale Translation

short_definition: Preserve intended relative importance and usability while dimensions reflow across media, devices, distances, and production contexts.

distinctive_feature: Breakpoint and cross-context translation logic determines success.

distinct_from_parent: Makes scale transition rather than one-context calibration primary.

still_same_parent_because: It retains the same ratio roles, contextual constraints, testing, and outcome monitoring.

source_primes: proportion_scale scale perspective

use_when: One system appears at multiple consequential scales.

use_when: Continuous enlargement or reduction fails at known thresholds.

example: Translate a visual system from mobile card to poster without merely multiplying all dimensions.

failure_modes: Nominal ratio preservation destroys legibility

name: Expressive Monumental or Miniature Scale

short_definition: Use intentional over- or under-scaling to alter emotional force, symbolism, bodily relation, or interpretation.

distinctive_feature: Deliberate deviation from ordinary body or object scale carries expressive meaning.

distinct_from_parent: Makes exaggeration and apparent scale the primary intervention.

still_same_parent_because: The exception remains calibrated through reference frames, mockups, constraints, and outcome tests.

source_primes: proportion_scale scale juxtaposition

use_when: The effect can be bounded without sacrificing safety, accessibility, or truthful context.

example: Enlarge an ordinary object to monumental scale while testing sightlines, navigation, material behavior, and interpretive effect.

failure_modes: Apparent depth or mass creates unsafe judgment

near_names:
Relative Sizing Calibration
Dimensional Harmony Design
Compositional Scale Tuning
Ratio-Based Size Design
Proportional Relationship Design