Stress Accumulation Monitoring

batch: First Iteration/Batch 20

aliases:
Tension Accumulation Monitoring
Strain Buildup Monitoring
Accumulated Pressure Tracking
Rupture-Risk Monitoring
Stress Buildup Surveillance

related_primes: threshold feedback damping resilience fault_tolerance uncertainty homeostasis continuity_vs_rupture coupling gradient instability

slug: damping

slug: resilience

slug: uncertainty

slug: homeostasis

slug: coupling

slug: gradient

slug: instability

components:
Stress Source Inventory
Stress Indicator
Accumulation Model
Weak Point Map
Rupture Threshold
Recovery and Dissipation Assumption
Trend Review Cadence
Relief Trigger
Relief or Reinforcement Path
Calibration Review Loop

essence_one_line: Track accumulated stress before it reaches rupture threshold.

compression_statement: When tension accumulates gradually before sudden breakage, monitor stress buildup and weak points so relief or reinforcement can occur before rupture.

core_intuition: Many ruptures look sudden only because the accumulation that preceded them was poorly observed. The archetype makes stored stress visible over time, locates weak points where stress will concentrate, estimates rupture conditions, and connects warning signals to concrete relief or reinforcement.

canonical_formula: stress_sources + stress_indicators + accumulation_model + weak_point_map + rupture_threshold + trend_review_cadence + relief_trigger + response_pathway + calibration_review → pre-rupture stress visibility and timely intervention

structural_problem: A system absorbs stress over time until it may suddenly fracture, burn out, snap, revolt, default, or collapse.

trigger_conditions: Stress inputs recur or compound faster than the system naturally dissipates them.

trigger_conditions: The system has weak points where stress concentrates unevenly, even when average load appears acceptable.

trigger_conditions: Visible performance can remain tolerable while hidden fatigue, resentment, debt, pressure, or damage accumulates.

trigger_conditions: Post-rupture recovery would be costly, dangerous, politically damaging, or hard to reverse.

trigger_conditions: There is enough observability to measure, estimate, or triangulate stress trends before rupture.

trigger_conditions: Relief, reinforcement, recovery, redesign, or escalation remains possible if warning appears early enough.

symptoms: The system repeatedly experiences surprise breaks even though small warning signs existed beforehand.

symptoms: Lagging performance metrics look healthy while strain complaints, near misses, cracks, delays, incidents, errors, or grievances increase.

symptoms: Average load measures hide concentrated pressure on specific roles, joints, relationships, queues, obligations, or interfaces.

symptoms: Teams rely on heroic recovery after rupture rather than watching stored stress before it breaks something.

symptoms: Stress signals exist informally but are not consolidated, trended, interpreted, or connected to action rules.

symptoms: Recovery time, maintenance time, rest, slack, or trust-repair time is assumed rather than measured or protected.

root_tension: The intervention must make latent stress visible early enough to act, without creating noisy dashboards, false precision, alert fatigue, punitive surveillance, or overreaction to harmless variation. The same monitoring that prevents rupture can also become intrusive, bureaucratic, or ignored unless signals are trustworthy and response rules are legitimate.

anti_signatures: The problem is only immediate excess demand and the system should simply drop or divert load; that points toward Load Shedding or Flow Diversion.

anti_signatures: The system is gradually declining without a meaningful rupture threshold; that points toward Deterioration Monitoring rather than stress accumulation.

anti_signatures: The main task is designing extra reserve capacity before stress appears; that points toward Robustness Margin Design or Capacity Reservation.

anti_signatures: The accumulated pressure is already known and the immediate need is a safe discharge path; that points toward Controlled Stress Relief.

anti_signatures: The problem is monitoring proximity to a regime boundary rather than cumulative tension at weak points; that points toward Transition Boundary Monitoring.

anti_signatures: The activity is a one-time stress test, dashboard, survey, or pressure gauge with no accumulation model, weak-point map, rupture threshold, or response rule.

structural_intervention: Identify stress sources, accumulation indicators, weak points, rupture thresholds, and relief or reinforcement actions.

action_logic: Define the system boundary, the kind of stress being tracked, and the kinds of rupture that matter.

action_logic: Inventory recurring stress sources, rare spikes, compounding stressors, and stressors hidden by normal performance metrics.

action_logic: Select stress indicators that combine leading signals, lagging signals, subjective evidence, weak-point evidence, and contextual interpretation.

action_logic: Build an accumulation model that states how stress adds, compounds, dissipates, transfers, or becomes latent fatigue over time.

action_logic: Map weak points where stress concentrates: joints, overloaded roles, interfaces, debts, relationships, queues, old assets, thin reserves, or marginalized populations.

action_logic: Estimate rupture thresholds with uncertainty rather than pretending thresholds are exact.

action_logic: Define watch levels, trend review cadence, escalation rules, and relief triggers before stress becomes urgent.

action_logic: Connect each relief trigger to a credible relief or reinforcement path, such as load reduction, rest, maintenance, mediation, structural repair, debt restructuring, or reserve activation.

action_logic: Review near misses, false alarms, missed ruptures, and successful interventions to recalibrate indicators and thresholds.

action_logic: Communicate monitoring results in a way that supports timely action without punishing people, hiding uncertainty, or normalizing unsafe stress.

decision_rules: If stress is rising at a weak point, escalate even when average system performance still looks acceptable.

decision_rules: If a stress threshold is uncertain, use conservative margins and trend acceleration rather than waiting for exact proof.

decision_rules: If signals are noisy, triangulate independent indicators before triggering high-cost action, but do not ignore convergent weak signals.

decision_rules: If monitored stress has no credible response path, redesign the system before adding more dashboards.

decision_rules: If a relief trigger fires repeatedly, investigate the stress source rather than repeatedly treating each warning as an isolated event.

decision_rules: If monitoring creates punitive incentives, privacy harm, or under-reporting, redesign the measurement and governance model.

decision_rules: If rupture is imminent, hand off from monitoring to Controlled Stress Relief, Load Shedding, Rupture Containment, or emergency stabilization.

target_invariants: The intervention tracks accumulated stress over time, not only momentary load or visible damage.

target_invariants: Weak points are explicit; average metrics cannot hide localized fragility.

target_invariants: Rupture thresholds include uncertainty and history dependence.

target_invariants: Monitoring is linked to action through relief triggers and response paths.

target_invariants: Human, social, and governance applications preserve dignity, consent, privacy, and non-punitive disclosure.

target_invariants: Calibration improves after near misses, false alarms, and ruptures.

expected_outcomes: Earlier recognition of conditions that could lead to rupture, burnout, fracture, default, revolt, or collapse.

expected_outcomes: Better targeting of relief, reinforcement, repair, rest, mediation, or escalation before damage becomes irreversible.

expected_outcomes: Reduced surprise failure by shifting attention from visible performance alone to cumulative stress and weak-point strain.

expected_outcomes: Clearer shared language for discussing stress levels, thresholds, uncertainty, and response obligations.

expected_outcomes: Improved learning from near misses and false alarms through calibration review.

prose_essence:
Stress Accumulation Monitoring is the archetype for making stored strain visible before it breaks something. It applies when a system can look stable while pressure, fatigue, conflict, debt, overload, or resentment is accumulating beneath the surface. The key move is not simply to watch a dashboard; it is to connect stress sources, accumulation over time, weak points, rupture thresholds, and response triggers into a pre-rupture monitoring loop.

The archetype is especially useful because many failures feel sudden only after the monitoring system has ignored their slow buildup. Bridges crack at high-stress joints, teams burn out after repeated recovery deficits, financial obligations become crises when due dates converge, and conflicts rupture after unresolved grievances accumulate.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when stress builds gradually, is not fully visible in current performance, and can suddenly rupture a weak point. It is appropriate when early relief, reinforcement, rest, repair, mediation, restructuring, or escalation is still possible.

It is less useful when there is no accumulation process, when the system is already in acute overload and must shed load immediately, or when no actor has the authority to respond to the monitoring. Monitoring without response capacity creates false reassurance.

prose_structural_problem:
The structural problem is latent accumulation. Stress enters the system repeatedly or compounds over time, but the damage is stored rather than immediately visible. Average metrics may look acceptable while one role, interface, joint, relationship, queue, asset, or obligation moves closer to rupture.

This creates a mismatch between appearance and risk. The system may reward continued operation because the output still looks normal, while recovery time, maintenance reserves, trust, slack, and physical tolerance are being consumed. By the time visible damage appears, the intervention window may have narrowed.

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention begins by defining what kind of stress matters and what kind of rupture is being prevented. It then inventories stress sources, selects indicators, models accumulation, maps weak points, estimates rupture thresholds, and defines relief triggers.

The most important design requirement is action linkage. A stress indicator should not merely announce danger; it should point to a response path. That path might reduce load, add staffing, reinforce a structure, schedule maintenance, mediate conflict, restructure debt, protect recovery time, or escalate to controlled stress relief.

The loop must also calibrate itself. Near misses, false alarms, ignored warnings, and actual ruptures should update the indicators and thresholds. Otherwise the monitoring system becomes a ritual rather than a learning instrument.

prose_key_components:
### Stress Source Inventory

A stress source inventory names the loads, pressures, conflicts, obligations, or conditions that add stress to the system. It should include ordinary recurring stressors, rare spikes, compounding stressors, and hidden stressors that normal performance metrics conceal.

### Stress Indicator

A stress indicator is an observable signal that stress is present, rising, concentrating, or failing to dissipate. Strong designs use multiple indicators rather than a single proxy, because stress can be physical, behavioral, financial, emotional, operational, or relational.

### Accumulation Model

The accumulation model explains how stress adds up over time. It should state whether stress naturally decays, requires recovery, compounds after partial damage, transfers to other parts, or remains latent as fatigue, debt, resentment, or hidden deterioration.

### Weak Point Map

The weak point map identifies where accumulated stress is most likely to rupture. This prevents average-load blindness. A system may look fine overall while one bridge joint, overloaded team, social boundary, payment obligation, or technical interface is close to breaking.

### Rupture Threshold

The rupture threshold defines the approximate level, duration, combination, or concentration of stress beyond which breakage becomes likely. It should be treated as uncertain and history-dependent, not as a magic exact number.

### Recovery and Dissipation Assumption

This component asks whether stress actually dissipates. A quiet week may not repair burnout, material fatigue, distrust, technical debt, or deferred maintenance. The monitoring design must know what counts as recovery.

### Trend Review Cadence

The trend review cadence determines how often signals are interpreted. Slow accumulation may need monthly or seasonal review; volatile stress may need frequent review. Human systems require a cadence that avoids intrusive surveillance.

### Relief Trigger

A relief trigger specifies when stress evidence is strong enough to act. It may be a threshold crossing, an accelerating trend, a cluster of weak signals, a weak-point warning, or a combined review decision.

### Relief or Reinforcement Path

Monitoring must connect to a response path. The response might be rest, repair, mediation, staffing, restructuring, reserve activation, or load reduction. Without this component, stress monitoring becomes actionless reporting.

### Calibration Review Loop

The calibration review loop updates the monitoring design after surprises. It asks which signals predicted risk, which missed it, which alarms were false, and whether thresholds or weak-point assumptions need revision.

prose_common_mechanisms:
### Structural Stress Sensor Network

A structural stress sensor network implements the archetype in physical systems by tracking strain, vibration, cracking, corrosion, or load history. It is not the archetype itself because it only supplies evidence; the archetype also requires accumulation interpretation and response triggers.

### Fatigue Inspection Program

A fatigue inspection program schedules review around expected stress cycles and known weak points. It is a mechanism for physical assets, especially where fatigue can accumulate before visible failure.

### Burnout Survey and Workload Review

A burnout survey and workload review implements the archetype for human systems. It should combine self-report with workload, recovery, turnover, error, and schedule signals. It must be non-punitive; otherwise people will hide the stress the system needs to see.

### Conflict Tension Indicator Review

A conflict tension review tracks grievances, avoidance, escalation language, trust breakdown, complaint patterns, and unresolved issues. It implements the archetype when rupture would be social, relational, or institutional.

### Infrastructure Load Monitoring Dashboard

An infrastructure dashboard can support the archetype by tracking utilization, queueing, latency, heat, reserve depletion, and repeated overload. It becomes useful only when those signals are interpreted as accumulating stress and connected to action.

### Debt Stress Tracking

Debt stress tracking monitors stored obligations: financial debt, technical debt, maintenance backlog, or institutional promises. The rupture may occur when payment, repair, renewal, or accountability becomes unavoidable.

### Pressure Gauge and Alarm

A pressure gauge or alarm is a narrow mechanism for observing one stress variable. It supports the archetype only if the value is trended, contextualized, and tied to relief decisions.

### Social Unrest Indicator Dashboard

A social unrest indicator dashboard can track civic or community stress, but it is safety-sensitive. It should support stress-source reduction and rights-preserving response, not coercive surveillance.

prose_failure_modes:
The most common failure mode is dashboard theater: signals are collected but no one acts. Other failures include average-load blindness, punitive disclosure, alert fatigue, false precision, lagging-indicator dependence, threshold complacency, and actionless monitoring.

In social and human systems, the gravest failure is extracting more performance from already stressed people by making their stress visible without reducing its sources. That is not prevention; it is exploitation with better metrics.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Stress Accumulation Monitoring is distinct from Controlled Stress Relief: monitoring detects accumulated stress, while relief discharges or reduces it. It is distinct from Deterioration Monitoring because the key risk is sudden rupture after stored tension, not only gradual decline. It is distinct from Robustness Margin Design because margin design builds tolerance, while stress monitoring watches whether tolerance is being consumed.

It also differs from Transition Boundary Monitoring, which watches proximity to a regime boundary. Stress accumulation may lead to a regime shift, but this archetype tracks cumulative strain at weak points rather than distance to a phase boundary. It can support Tipping Point Prevention, but prevention is a broader strategy and this archetype is the sensing-and-action loop for stress buildup.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In civil infrastructure, a bridge authority tracks strain, vibration, crack growth, corrosion, and traffic load at known weak points so repair can happen before fatigue failure. In healthcare operations, staffing ratios, overtime, acuity, recovery time, errors, and self-reported strain can trigger relief staffing before a unit burns out.

In software operations, incident frequency, on-call load, unresolved backlog, queue saturation, and technical debt can reveal that a system and its team are accumulating stress before an outage. In labor relations, unresolved grievances and trust signals can warn that conflict is building toward a strike or mass exit.

prose_non_examples: A one-time stress test is not this archetype unless the result informs ongoing monitoring. A dashboard that displays many metrics but has no accumulation model, weak-point map, or response path is not this archetype. A manager who collects burnout scores and blames individuals without changing workload or support conditions is misusing a mechanism, not implementing Stress Accumulation Monitoring.

prose_tradeoffs: Stress monitoring trades attention and measurement burden against rupture risk. More visibility can prevent failure, but it can also create false precision, alert fatigue, surveillance harm, or dashboard theater. Conservative thresholds can protect weak points but may over-trigger costly action. Loose thresholds may preserve efficiency while quietly allowing stress to accumulate.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
The monitoring loop must continue to track cumulative stress, not merely present load. Weak points must remain explicit. Threshold uncertainty must be visible. Signals must connect to action. In human systems, disclosure must not become a source of punishment or stigma.

The most important invariant is that monitoring should reduce rupture risk, not normalize unsafe stress. A system that observes people or assets under growing strain but does not change conditions has not implemented the archetype well.

prose_target_outcomes: The target outcomes are earlier recognition of rupture conditions, better targeting of relief or reinforcement, fewer surprise failures, and better calibration over time. A mature implementation also creates a shared language for discussing stress, thresholds, uncertainty, weak points, and response obligations.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
Important tuning dimensions include sensitivity, specificity, review cadence, threshold conservatism, weak-point granularity, privacy level, response authority, and calibration frequency.

A highly sensitive design catches danger early but may generate false alarms. A highly specific design may reduce noise but miss early weak signals. Human and governance applications also require tuning around consent, privacy, dignity, and non-punitive disclosure.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
Structural Fatigue Monitoring applies the pattern to physical assets and materials. Human Burnout Monitoring applies it to workload, recovery, and emotional strain with strong privacy and non-punitive safeguards. Conflict Tension Monitoring applies it to grievances, trust breakdown, and social escalation. Debt Stress Monitoring applies it to accumulated obligations such as financial debt, technical debt, maintenance backlog, and deferred commitments.

Near names such as tension monitoring, strain tracking, accumulated pressure tracking, stress dashboard, pressure gauge, and burnout survey should usually point back to this archetype or one of its variants. Dashboards, gauges, surveys, and inspections are mechanisms, not full archetypes.

Structural Fatigue Monitoring

short_definition: Monitors accumulating material, mechanical, or structural stress before cracks, fatigue, deformation, or breakage becomes catastrophic.

distinctive_feature: The stress object is a physical structure or material whose failure often concentrates at joints, cracks, interfaces, or fatigued members.

distinct_from_parent: The parent can apply to social, financial, organizational, and technical systems; this variant focuses on physical fatigue and engineered thresholds.

still_same_parent_because: The core intervention is still the same: observe cumulative stress, model accumulation, map weak points, define rupture thresholds, and trigger relief or reinforcement.

use_when: A physical asset experiences repeated stress cycles, high loads, vibration, heat, corrosion, or age-related fatigue.

use_when: Failure can be sudden even though strain has been accumulating over time.

use_when: Sensors, inspections, or engineering models can identify weak points and stress trends before rupture.

Stress Indicator

role: Measures strain, vibration, temperature, crack growth, or load history.

Weak Point Map

role: Locates joints, welds, bearings, supports, old materials, or stress concentrators.

Rupture Threshold

role: Defines unsafe strain, fatigue, or crack-growth conditions with uncertainty margins.

Structural Stress Sensor Network

role: Collects physical strain and fatigue evidence.

Fatigue Inspection Program

role: Inspects known weak points on a stress-informed cadence.

example_domains:
civil infrastructure
mechanical systems
aviation
manufacturing

domain: bridges

example: Track strain and crack propagation at known high-stress joints before a fatigue crack becomes a structural failure.

domain: manufacturing

example: Review machine vibration and duty-cycle history to schedule repair before a part snaps.

failure_modes: False confidence in sensors that miss hidden corrosion or material history.

failure_modes: Average-load monitoring that ignores a small high-stress joint.

Human Burnout Monitoring

short_definition: Monitors accumulating human workload, emotional strain, recovery deficit, and role pressure before burnout or breakdown occurs.

distinctive_feature: The monitored system is human; stress disclosure, consent, privacy, stigma, and power asymmetry become central design constraints.

distinct_from_parent: The parent is domain-general; this variant requires explicit safeguards against punitive surveillance and individualized blame.

still_same_parent_because: It still uses stress indicators, accumulation assumptions, weak-point mapping, rupture thresholds, relief triggers, and calibration review.

use_when: People or teams carry repeated overload, emotional labor, moral injury, scheduling strain, or unresolved role pressure.

use_when: The organization can reduce stress sources or add support rather than merely labeling individuals as fragile.

use_when: Indicators can be collected in a way that protects dignity, privacy, and psychological safety.

Stress Indicator

role: Combines workload, recovery, self-report, turnover, error, and behavioral signals.

Recovery and Dissipation Assumption

role: Checks whether rest and support are actually sufficient to reduce accumulated strain.

Relief or Reinforcement Path

role: Connects signals to workload adjustment, staffing, rest, mediation, or redesign.

Burnout Survey and Workload Review

role: Collects human strain evidence with privacy and non-punitive safeguards.

Team Stress Dashboard

role: Aggregates team-level indicators without exposing individuals unnecessarily.

example_domains:
healthcare staffing
software teams
education
emergency response
community organizations

example: Monitor staffing ratios, overtime, incident reports, and recovery time before a care team burns out.

domain: software operations

example: Track on-call load, sleep interruption, incident count, and unresolved work to trigger staffing or recovery before collapse.

failure_modes: Turns disclosure into punishment or reputational risk.

failure_modes: Treats burnout as individual weakness while leaving stress sources unchanged.

Conflict Tension Monitoring

short_definition: Monitors accumulating interpersonal, organizational, community, or political tension before rupture, walkout, violence, schism, or institutional breakdown.

distinctive_feature: Stress is relational and interpretive; the same signal may mean different things to different parties, and monitoring can itself change trust.

distinct_from_parent: The parent is broader; this variant emphasizes relational weak points, grievance patterns, legitimacy, trust, and escalation language.

still_same_parent_because: The intervention remains cumulative stress monitoring aimed at preventing sudden breakage of relationships or institutions.

use_when: Conflict energy accumulates through grievances, rumor, mistrust, avoidance, humiliation, unresolved decisions, or repeated small incidents.

use_when: The system has credible ways to mediate, repair, reduce stressors, or change process before rupture.

use_when: Monitoring can be rights-preserving and not merely an instrument of control.

Stress Source Inventory

role: Identifies recurring grievance sources, blocked voice channels, and legitimacy stressors.

Weak Point Map

role: Locates trust boundaries, role conflicts, factions, or interfaces likely to rupture.

Relief Trigger

role: Initiates mediation, listening, redesign, or containment when tension signals rise.

Conflict Tension Indicator Review

role: Reviews grievance, trust, avoidance, and escalation signals.

Grievance Channel Review

role: Checks whether grievances can surface before rupture.

example_domains:
labor relations
governance
community mediation
diplomacy
organizational conflict

domain: labor relations

example: Track unresolved grievances, bargaining breakdowns, and absenteeism before conflict escalates into a strike.

domain: community governance

example: Review repeated complaint themes and trust indicators before a community dispute fractures participation.

failure_modes: Surveillance posture increases distrust.

failure_modes: Signals are collected but no legitimate relief or voice channel exists.

Debt Stress Monitoring

short_definition: Monitors accumulating financial, technical, maintenance, or obligation debt before repayment pressure causes default, outage, collapse, or forced rupture.

distinctive_feature: Stress is stored as an obligation whose rupture may occur when payment, repair, renewal, or accountability becomes unavoidable.

distinct_from_parent: The parent covers many stress forms; this variant focuses on debt-like accumulated obligations and their due-date or compounding dynamics.

still_same_parent_because: The logic remains stress-source tracking, accumulation modeling, weak-point mapping, threshold estimation, and relief-trigger definition.

source_primes: stress_and_rupture threshold feedback

use_when: Unpaid obligations, deferred maintenance, technical debt, or financial liabilities accumulate out of view.

use_when: The danger depends on compounding, due dates, refinancing capacity, trust, reserves, and concentrated weak points.

use_when: There is still time to restructure, pay down, reinforce, refinance, retire, or reduce the source of debt stress.

Accumulation Model

role: Models compounding, due dates, interest, dependency, or maintenance backlog.

Rupture Threshold

role: Defines when debt pressure becomes default, outage, forced rewrite, or institutional crisis.

Relief or Reinforcement Path

role: Connects monitoring to restructuring, refactoring, paydown, maintenance, or renegotiation.

Debt Stress Tracking

role: Tracks accumulated debt pressure and weak points.

Maintenance Backlog Review

role: Makes deferred repair pressure visible before failure.

example_domains:
finance
software architecture
infrastructure maintenance
institutional obligations

domain: software

example: Track unresolved dependency risk and architectural debt before a minor change triggers a major outage.

domain: municipal infrastructure

example: Track deferred maintenance and replacement timelines before the system faces forced emergency repair.

failure_modes: Treats debt as a static number while ignoring due dates and compounding.

failure_modes: Monitors obligations but never funds relief or repair.

near_names:
Tension Monitoring
Strain Tracking
Accumulated Pressure Tracking
Stress Dashboard
Pressure Gauge
Burnout Survey
Weak Point Surveillance


type: archetype

source: generated

name: Structural Constraint Identification and Lock-In

batch: Second Iteration/Batch 03

aliases: Structural Trajectory Constraint Mapping

alias_records: Structural Trajectory Constraint Mapping

slug: constraint

slug: inertia

slug: causality

slug: irreversibility

slug: hysteresis

slug: threshold

slug: scale

slug: feedback

slug: complexity

slug: boundedness

slug: controllability

slug: observability

components:
Trajectory Question
Constraint Inventory
Constraint Strength Classification
Path-Dependency Timeline
Lock-In Mechanism Map
Feasibility Envelope
Agency Window Register
Evidence Weight Register
Switching-Cost Profile
Sunk Commitment Ledger
Institutional Rule Map
Infrastructure Dependency Map
Network-Effect Register
Counterfactual Breakpoint Probe
Stakeholder Power Map

mechanisms:
Process Tracing
Dependency Graph
Lock-In Map
Switching-Cost Audit
Feasibility Envelope Diagram
Counterfactual Breakpoint Analysis
Institutional Veto-Point Review
Comparative Case Constraint Check
Threshold and Hysteresis Assessment

essence_one_line: Make structural determinism precise by mapping which constraints and lock-in mechanisms actually channel future possibilities, and which alternatives remain open.

compression_statement: Structural Constraint Identification and Lock-In is the intervention of replacing vague inevitability claims with a structured map of binding constraints, inherited commitments, switching costs, dependencies, thresholds, feedbacks, and resource endowments. It distinguishes hard constraints from soft frictions, reversible choices from path-dependent lock-in, and deep structural forces from contingent events, so explanations can state what is highly constrained without erasing agency or uncertainty.

core_intuition: Some outcomes are not inevitable in an absolute sense, but they become much more likely because earlier choices, material conditions, institutional rules, infrastructures, network effects, and accumulated costs narrow the feasible set. The archetype works by turning “the structure made it happen” into inspectable claims: what exactly constrained action, how strongly, for whom, at what time, and through which lock-in mechanism?

canonical_formula: future_feasible_set(t+n) = possible_actions(t) constrained_by {material_endowments, institutional_rules, infrastructure, switching_costs, network_effects, sunk_costs, thresholds, feedback_loops, actor_power} minus opened_agency_windows and credible_breakpoints

structural_problem: A system, institution, technology, organization, or historical process appears to be following a constrained trajectory, but the explanation oscillates between fatalism (“it had to happen”) and voluntarism (“actors could simply choose otherwise”). The actual binding constraints and lock-in mechanisms are under-specified, making both causal explanation and intervention planning unreliable.

condition: A historical or organizational outcome is described as inevitable, structurally determined, or locked in.

diagnostic_use: Requires proof of the actual constraints rather than rhetorical determinism.

condition: Early choices, founding conditions, standards, infrastructure, or resource endowments continue shaping later options.

diagnostic_use: Signals path dependence and possible lock-in.

condition: The same actors repeatedly fail to change direction despite stated intention, new evidence, or visible costs.

diagnostic_use: Suggests hidden switching costs, dependency networks, incentive locks, or threshold effects.

condition: Competing explanations disagree over whether agency or structure matters more.

diagnostic_use: Calls for explicit separation of binding constraints, contingent choices, and residual agency windows.

condition: A policy, platform, technology, or institution has become expensive, risky, or politically difficult to reverse.

diagnostic_use: Requires lock-in mechanism mapping before redesign, exit, or transition.

condition: Forecasting or scenario planning needs to know which futures are structurally plausible rather than merely imaginable.

diagnostic_use: Use the archetype to delimit a feasibility envelope.

symptom: Explanations use broad phrases such as “capitalism,” “technology,” “geography,” “culture,” or “the system” without specifying causal channels.

interpretation: The structural claim may be real but currently unoperationalized.

symptom: Proposed solutions assume an easy choice reversal, but implementation repeatedly fails.

interpretation: Switching costs, thresholds, dependencies, or institutional rules may be binding.

symptom: Decision makers treat present arrangements as natural because alternatives are no longer visible.

interpretation: Lock-in may be hiding the history-created nature of current constraints.

symptom: Forecasts overstate open possibility or, conversely, assume total determinism.

interpretation: The feasible set and agency windows have not been mapped.

symptom: Actors blame individuals for outcomes largely produced by role structures, resource distributions, or inherited infrastructure.

interpretation: Structural constraints may be misattributed as personal failure.

symptom: A system has multiple reinforcing forces—legal, economic, technical, cultural, and logistical—that make change harder than any single factor suggests.

interpretation: Constraint interaction and cumulative lock-in need explicit treatment.

root_tension: Structural explanations are necessary because real constraints shape what can happen, but structural explanations become misleading when they turn probability into inevitability, hide counterfactual breakpoints, or deny the residual agency of actors operating inside constraints.

case: The goal is only to list requirements or constraints for an optimization problem.

reason: Use constraint_formulation; this archetype concerns trajectory-shaping constraints and lock-in over time.

case: The outcome is explained by one short causal chain with little inherited constraint or path dependence.

reason: Use causal_mechanism_mapping or counterfactual_comparison.

case: The main problem is to break inertia after the constraint structure is already known.

reason: Use inertia_breaking, path_dependence_escape, transition support, or migration design patterns.

case: The analysis is primarily about how a story selects events, centers actors, or omits alternatives.

reason: Use narrative_construction_audit; this archetype may feed that audit but is not itself narrative criticism.

case: A supposed constraint is merely a preference, habit, untested assumption, or political excuse.

reason: The candidate constraint should be demoted or rejected after evidence review.

case: The task requires moral accountability for harm rather than trajectory diagnosis.

reason: This archetype can expose structural conditions but should not replace accountability, equity, or structural harm mapping.

structural_intervention: Build a constraint-and-lock-in diagnosis: define the trajectory or outcome under question, inventory candidate constraints, classify their type and strength, map dependencies and feedbacks, identify path-dependent commitments and switching costs, test counterfactual breakpoints, and produce a bounded explanation that states which futures are structurally favored, which are blocked, and which remain feasible with specified interventions.

step: Specify the trajectory question.

logic: Name the outcome, time horizon, comparison class, and system boundary so “lock-in” refers to a definite path rather than a vague state.

step: Inventory candidate structural constraints.

logic: Collect material, geographic, infrastructural, institutional, economic, technological, cultural, ecological, legal, and power-distribution constraints.

step: Classify constraint type and strength.

logic: Separate hard impossibilities, high-cost barriers, rule-based restrictions, incentive pressures, social norms, information limits, and political veto points.

step: Trace the path-dependence timeline.

logic: Identify early choices, accidents, thresholds, standards, sunk costs, learning curves, and coordination equilibria that made later options easier or harder.

step: Map lock-in mechanisms.

logic: Show how switching costs, network effects, complementary assets, institutional rules, dependency chains, routines, and legitimacy narratives reinforce the current path.

step: Locate agency windows and breakpoints.

logic: Identify moments, actors, thresholds, alternative paths, and leverage points where different action was or remains credible.

step: Test deterministic claims counterfactually.

logic: Ask which constraints would need to change for the outcome to differ, and whether such changes were historically, politically, physically, or economically plausible.

step: Synthesize into a feasibility envelope.

logic: Represent which outcomes are strongly favored, weakly constrained, blocked, or open under current and altered structural conditions.

step: Mark uncertainty and evidence weight.

logic: Distinguish observed constraints from inferred constraints, disputed constraints, and plausible but unverified causal channels.

rule: Treat inevitability as a claim requiring constraint evidence.

application: Do not call an outcome locked in unless mechanisms, thresholds, or dependencies can be named.

rule: Distinguish hard constraints from high-friction options.

application: Something difficult, costly, or politically resisted is not the same as impossible.

rule: Separate structural causation from moral exoneration.

application: A structural constraint may explain behavior without removing responsibility for choices within the feasible set.

rule: Require temporal ordering.

application: A lock-in mechanism must show how earlier conditions shape later options, not merely co-occur with them.

rule: Preserve residual agency when credible.

application: Identify actors, coalitions, technologies, or institutional reforms that could alter or loosen constraints.

rule: Use multiple scales without conflating them.

application: Geography, law, infrastructure, organizational routines, and individual incentives may constrain different layers.

rule: Retire weak constraints.

application: If a proposed constraint lacks evidence or fails comparison against similar cases, remove or downgrade it.

invariant: Constraint specificity

preserve_by: Name the exact rule, asset, dependency, resource, topology, threshold, cost, or norm that limits options.

invariant: Temporal directionality

preserve_by: Keep path formation, lock-in, and present constraint in sequence.

invariant: Agency preservation

preserve_by: Mark realistic choice windows and intervention points rather than treating structure as total fate.

invariant: Evidence weighting

preserve_by: Classify constraints by support level and avoid equal treatment of proven and speculative barriers.

invariant: Scale integrity

preserve_by: Do not collapse macro-structural forces, meso-institutional rules, and micro-actor incentives into one undifferentiated “structure.”

invariant: Reversibility status

preserve_by: Distinguish reversible, costly-to-reverse, and effectively irreversible constraints.

expected_outcomes: Deterministic explanations become inspectable rather than rhetorical.

expected_outcomes: Forecasts and scenarios better reflect actual feasibility limits.

expected_outcomes: Interventions target binding constraints instead of symptoms or convenient scapegoats.

expected_outcomes: Historical and organizational accounts preserve both structural pressure and contingent agency.

expected_outcomes: Lock-in mechanisms become visible early enough for exit, transition, or mitigation planning.

expected_outcomes: Teams avoid wasting effort on nominal options that current structure makes implausible.

prose_essence:
Structural Constraint Identification and Lock-In turns broad claims about structural inevitability into a testable diagnosis. It asks what actually constrains a trajectory, how those constraints formed, how strongly they bind, and where actors still have room to act.

This pattern is most useful when an explanation is stuck between two bad extremes: fatalism, where the outcome is treated as unavoidable, and voluntarism, where people are imagined to be free of inherited material, institutional, economic, and technical constraints. The archetype does not choose one side. It maps the constraint structure so the distinction becomes concrete.

name: Geographic and Resource Lock-In Analysis

short_definition: Analyze how geography, resources, climate, terrain, or location constrain later social, economic, or political possibilities.

distinctive_feature: Material endowments and location are central constraint sources.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to physical and geographic constraints.

still_same_parent_because: It still performs constraint identification, strength classification, and agency-window preservation.

use_when: Physical geography or resource distribution materially shapes the feasible set.

use_when: Alternative outcomes require changing or compensating for material conditions.

example_domains:
economic history
urban planning
environmental policy

failure_modes: geographic determinism without institutional or agency analysis

Institutional Lock-In Analysis

short_definition: Diagnose how formal rules, veto points, administrative routines, legal precedents, and political coalitions stabilize a trajectory.

distinctive_feature: Institutional rules and power-maintained veto points are the main constraint source.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to governance and institutional durability.

still_same_parent_because: It uses the same structure of constraint inventory, lock-in mapping, and agency-window identification.

use_when: Formal institutions or governance rules keep reproducing an outcome.

use_when: Reform repeatedly fails despite nominal authority to change.

example_domains:
public policy
legal reform
organizational governance

failure_modes: Treating political resistance as impossibility without testing coalition alternatives

Technology Platform Lock-In Analysis

short_definition: Map how standards, installed base, complementary assets, user training, integrations, and network effects constrain technology evolution.

distinctive_feature: Switching costs and network/complementarity effects dominate the lock-in.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to technological and platform evolution.

still_same_parent_because: The core task remains identification of path-dependent constraints and realistic breakpoints.

use_when: A technology or platform remains dominant despite visible drawbacks.

use_when: Exit requires coordination among many dependent users or systems.

example_domains:
software ecosystems
enterprise IT
industry standards

failure_modes: Assuming technical superiority automatically defeats installed-base lock-in

Organizational Founder-Effect Lock-In

short_definition: Trace how founding choices, early hires, routines, stories, incentives, and leadership norms keep shaping later organizational behavior.

distinctive_feature: Founding conditions and early routines are central path-dependence sources.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to organizations and founder/early-stage imprinting.

still_same_parent_because: It retains the parent diagnostic structure of timeline, constraint map, lock-in mechanisms, and agency windows.

use_when: A mature organization keeps reproducing an early culture or operating model.

use_when: Change efforts fail because early defaults have become embedded in hiring, promotion, tooling, and identity.

example_domains:
organizational change
startup scaling
institutional culture

failure_modes: Over-attributing current behavior to founders while ignoring newer incentives

Infrastructure Path-Dependence Mapping

short_definition: Analyze how inherited physical or technical infrastructure channels future development, cost, and policy options.

distinctive_feature: Durable infrastructure is the primary constraint source.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to asset-heavy and built-system trajectories.

still_same_parent_because: It remains a constraint-and-lock-in diagnosis rather than a construction or migration plan.

use_when: Roads, energy systems, buildings, codebases, utilities, or logistics networks make some futures much easier than others.

use_when: Transition depends on replacing or bypassing long-lived assets.

example_domains:
urban planning
energy transition
software architecture

failure_modes: Ignoring maintenance cycles, asset lifetimes, and staged replacement windows

Social Norm Constraint Lock-In

short_definition: Diagnose how expectations, status penalties, rituals, legitimacy narratives, and informal enforcement make alternative behavior costly.

distinctive_feature: Informal social enforcement is the key lock-in mechanism.

distinct_from_parent: Narrows the parent to norm-mediated constraints rather than material or institutional constraints.

still_same_parent_because: The diagnostic still maps constraint strength, enforcement mechanisms, and agency windows.

use_when: People privately prefer change but publicly conform to a norm.

use_when: Formal change is possible but informal sanctions keep behavior stable.

example_domains:
organizational culture
community governance
social movements

failure_modes: Mistaking fear of sanction for genuine consensus

near_names:
Structural Force Mapping
Lock-In Mapping
Path-Dependent Constraint Diagnosis
Structural Determinism Analysis
Deep Constraint Diagnosis


Structural Filter Intersection Audit

batch: Batch 07

aliases:
Institutional Filter Intersection Audit
Parallel Filter Mapping
Gatekeeping Stack Audit
Structural Selection Audit
Filter-Set Visibility
Output Filter Intersection Governance
Institutional Output Filter Audit
Distributed Gatekeeping Audit
Structural Omission Audit
Surviving-Output Bias Audit

source_primes: structural_filtering gatekeeping screening intersection institution viewpoint

slug: gatekeeping

slug: screening

slug: intersection

slug: institution

slug: viewpoint

slug: preimage

slug: substitutability

slug: accountability

slug: framing

slug: bias

slug: boundary

slug: trust

slug: role

slug: hierarchy

components: Appeal / Exception / Public-Reason Channel

components: Audience or Downstream Interpretation Model

essence_one_line: Map the whole filter set, compare candidate outputs with survivors, and govern the intersection so institutional structure does not silently masquerade as natural consensus.

compression_statement: Structural Filter Intersection Audit is the pattern of treating visible output as the survivor of multiple institutional filters rather than as an unmediated expression of producer intent or public reality. It identifies the candidate output universe, enumerates parallel filters, reconstructs pass/fail rules, samples rejected or transformed items, models the surviving intersection, distinguishes explicit choice from routine adaptation, and then introduces traceability, filter legitimacy standards, diversity and independence controls, appeal paths, shadow review, and periodic drift review.

core_intuition: When many filters are applied at once, the final output can be highly predictable even if every participant feels sincere, professional, and autonomous. A newsroom, platform, grant program, bureaucracy, or internal reporting chain may not need a censor; ownership, incentives, routines, source access, legal fear, reviewer norms, attention scarcity, approval hierarchy, and platform rules can jointly make some outputs almost impossible to see. The solution is not to abolish all filters, but to make the filter intersection visible and governable.

canonical_formula: candidate_outputs ∩ filter_1 ∩ filter_2 ∩ ... ∩ filter_n = surviving_output; invisible_filter_rules + sincere_adaptation -> predictable_output_bias; filter_mapping + survivor/non_survivor_comparison + legitimacy_review -> accountable_selection

structural_problem: A content-producing or decision-producing system applies multiple parallel filters before output becomes visible, authorized, funded, ranked, or treated as legitimate. Each filter may be locally reasonable, and producers may be sincere or unaware, yet the intersection of filters systematically removes, softens, delays, or reframes certain outputs. Audiences then mistake the surviving surface for reality, consensus, demand, quality, or independent judgment.

condition: Several independent institutions, roles, or rules can veto, delay, reshape, downrank, or defund output.

notes: A single gate is not enough; the pattern matters when multiple filters combine.

condition: The candidate output universe is larger than the visible survivor set.

notes: There must be plausible non-surviving alternatives, not merely poor production.

condition: Filter criteria are partly implicit, incentive-driven, or routinized.

notes: The system works even when no one states the full selection rule.

condition: Producers adapt to expected filters before formal review occurs.

notes: Self-editing, source selection, topic choice, and scope narrowing can happen upstream.

condition: Recipients observe surviving output but not discarded, softened, or never-attempted output.

notes: This makes the intersection look like natural consensus or objective reality.

condition: Nominally distinct filters share incentives or information sources.

notes: Apparent plurality may still yield one narrow intersection.

condition: Legitimate quality filters and illegitimate viewpoint or status filters are mixed together.

notes: Repair requires separation, not blanket anti-filter rhetoric.

symptoms: Output across producers looks homogeneous even when producers are not centrally coordinated.

symptoms: Certain topics, sources, explanations, stakeholders, risks, or counterarguments rarely survive to the public or official surface.

symptoms: Participants say “no one told me not to say it,” yet they can predict which outputs would fail approval, funding, ranking, legal, or professional filters.

symptoms: The stated selection rule explains only part of the observed pattern; informal incentives explain the rest.

symptoms: Rejected, delayed, or reframed material shows recurring patterns that are invisible in the final output alone.

symptoms: Removing one filter produces little change because other filters exclude the same output class.

symptoms: A system defends itself by pointing to producer sincerity, while critics point to systematic omission or homogenization.

symptoms: Audiences or downstream decision makers infer consensus, neutrality, or low demand from a survivor set shaped by unseen filters.

root_tension: Every production system needs filters for relevance, quality, safety, legality, privacy, scarcity, and coherence. But when filter criteria, incentives, and interactions are hidden, the surviving intersection can encode institutional power and bias while appearing neutral. The design challenge is to preserve legitimate filtering while making structural selection visible, contestable, and correctable.

anti_signatures: If the main issue is a single explicit approval gate, use a gatekeeping, boundary, or process-control pattern rather than this parallel-filter intersection audit.

anti_signatures: If the main issue is screening actors for hidden quality or risk, use hidden_type_screening or adverse_selection_filtering rather than structural output filtering.

anti_signatures: If the main issue is efficient option pruning in a search or optimization problem, use search_space_pruning, progressive_narrowing, or parsimony_filter.

anti_signatures: If the main issue is public-claim verification and correction after a claim is chosen, use procedural_objectivity_warranting or evidentiary_trace_warranting.

anti_signatures: If the main issue is direct coercive suppression by one authority, direct censorship or access-control analysis may be sufficient; this archetype is needed when distributed institutional filters jointly shape the survivor set.

structural_intervention: Make the filter set and its surviving intersection explicit, compare survivors against candidate and rejected outputs, separate legitimate from illegitimate filters, and redesign governance so output selection is traceable, diverse, contestable, and aligned with the system purpose.

action_logic: Define the candidate output universe and visible survivor set.

action_logic: Map all filters that can affect production, approval, funding, ranking, publication, delivery, or legitimacy.

action_logic: Reconstruct each filter's owner, incentive, authority, criteria, evidence, and point of application.

action_logic: Sample rejected, softened, delayed, abandoned, or downranked outputs rather than analyzing only survivors.

action_logic: Model the intersection and identify overdetermined exclusions, blind spots, and illegitimate selection rules.

action_logic: Distinguish legitimate filters from structural distortion using purpose, public reason, fairness, quality, privacy, and accountability standards.

action_logic: Introduce traceability, shadow review, filter independence, diversity, appeal, and periodic drift controls.

action_logic: Monitor whether visible output becomes broader, more warranted, or more accurately labeled as filtered.

rule: Use intersection modeling when each individual filter seems defensible but the combined survivor set is predictably narrow.

rationale: The harm is emergent across filters, not necessarily in any one filter alone.

rule: Require non-survivor evidence before claiming structural filtering.

rationale: Survivor-only critique can confuse low base rates with suppression.

rule: Treat producer sincerity as compatible with structural selection.

rationale: The target prime explicitly warns that predictable output can arise without bad faith.

rule: Separate quality, safety, privacy, and reliability filters from status, access, patronage, viewpoint, and convenience filters.

rationale: Repair depends on filter legitimacy, not indiscriminate filter removal.

rule: If removing one filter does not change outcomes, inspect filter redundancy and shared incentives.

rationale: Overdetermined intersections are a signature of structural filtering.

rule: Do not demand unlimited output visibility as the default remedy.

rationale: Scarcity and quality constraints are real; the goal is accountable selection.

target_invariants: Filter list is explicit enough for review.

target_invariants: Survivor set is compared with candidate and non-surviving outputs.

target_invariants: Filter legitimacy standard separates warranted from unwarranted selection.

target_invariants: At least one mechanism exists for challenge, exception, or independent review.

target_invariants: The system can explain recurring omissions without reducing them to individual bad faith.

target_invariants: Downstream audiences are not misled into treating heavily filtered output as unfiltered reality.

expected_outcomes: Recurring omissions and homogenization become visible and evidence-grounded.

expected_outcomes: Legitimate filters are preserved but better justified, scoped, and documented.

expected_outcomes: Illegitimate or overbroad filters are relaxed, diversified, rotated, or made appealable.

expected_outcomes: Producers have clearer rules and safer channels for contested outputs.

expected_outcomes: Audiences or decision makers receive better labels about how output was filtered.

expected_outcomes: Future failures can be investigated through filter postmortems rather than anecdotal blame.

Media Structural Filter Audit

short_definition: Audit how media ownership, advertising, sourcing routines, professional norms, legal risk, attention economics, and editorial hierarchy shape the set of news outputs that survive.

distinctive_feature: The domain is journalism or public communication, and the filters include media-specific institutional incentives.

distinct_from_parent: It specializes the parent to news, public claims, sourcing, framing, and editorial systems.

still_same_parent_because: It still models surviving output as the intersection of multiple institutional filters.

use_when: News or public-information output appears sincere yet repeatedly omits or normalizes certain viewpoints.

use_when: No single editor or censor explains the pattern.

use_when: The repair problem is mapping the filter intersection rather than blaming one producer.

domain: journalism

example: A newsroom maps why labor, ownership, and source-access pressures repeatedly narrow coverage of a strike.

failure_modes: The audit becomes a partisan accusation rather than an evidence-based filter map.

Platform Visibility Filter Audit

short_definition: Audit how ranking, policy, monetization, recommender, moderation, advertiser-safety, and subscriber-selection filters shape what platform users see.

distinctive_feature: The output is visibility, ranking, or delivery rather than publication alone.

distinct_from_parent: It adds platform-specific concerns such as ranking opacity, subscription routing, monetization, and policy enforcement.

still_same_parent_because: It remains an intersection audit of parallel filters governing surviving output.

use_when: The visible feed, marketplace, search result, or recommendation surface diverges from the candidate content universe.

use_when: Multiple policy and algorithmic filters interact, making the final visibility pattern hard to attribute.

use_when: Creators or users mistake filtered visibility for natural demand or consensus.

example: A platform compares candidate posts to delivered feeds after moderation, advertiser-safety, ranking, and notification filters.

failure_modes: The audit treats every ranking loss as suppression and ignores legitimate relevance or safety filters.

name: Publication and Peer-Review Filter Audit

short_definition: Audit how funding, prestige, methodology norms, reviewer selection, publication incentives, and editorial scope shape the research that reaches the public record.

distinctive_feature: The filtered artifact is a scholarly or expert record rather than general content.

distinct_from_parent: It specializes the parent to epistemic record formation and research publication incentives.

still_same_parent_because: It still explains survival through parallel institutional filters, not only individual author choice.

use_when: The public research record may overrepresent publishable, fundable, positive, fashionable, or institutionally safe findings.

use_when: Researchers are sincere, but the surviving record is predictably narrowed.

use_when: The task is to compare candidate inquiry space with published or funded outputs.

example: A field compares preregistered studies, rejected papers, funded proposals, and published results to map publication filters.

failure_modes: The audit collapses into ordinary researcher-bias critique and misses institutional selection architecture.

near_names:
Institutional Filter Intersection Audit
Parallel Filter Mapping
Structural Selection Audit
Filter-Set Visibility
Gatekeeping Stack Audit


Structural Harm Mapping

batch: First Iteration/Batch 44

related_primes: causality externality constraint leverage_points observability feedback accountability systemic_fragmentation sociotechnical_systems

slug: equity

slug: causality

slug: externality

slug: constraint

slug: feedback

components:
Affected Need or Opportunity
Harm Pattern Description
Structural Pathway
Institutional Constraint
Access and Resource Map
Decision Point Map
Burden Distribution Check
Affected Voice and Evidence Check
Remedy Pathway
Harm Reduction Metric
Counterfactual Comparison
Cumulative Burden Layer
Remedy Owner

mechanisms:
Equity Impact Assessment
Structural Audit
Access Pathway Map
Policy Pathway Analysis
Institutional Barrier Review
Social Determinants Mapping
Systems Harm Analysis
Affected-Party Review Panel
Remedy Co-Design Workshop
Harm Reduction Dashboard

essence_one_line: Map indirect systemic pathways that produce harm even without a single direct perpetrator.

compression_statement: When harm is produced by institutional arrangements, map the pathway from policies, access gates, incentives, resource flows, constraints, and decision points to unmet needs or unequal opportunities, then design remedies that interrupt the pathway and monitor whether harm actually decreases.

core_intuition: Some harms persist because responsibility is distributed across many locally reasonable rules, routines, incentives, and omissions. Looking only for a single bad actor misses the structure that makes the harm repeat. The archetype works by turning diffuse harm into a traceable pathway: what need is affected, which arrangements shape access or exposure, where decisions can change the pathway, and how repair will be measured.

canonical_formula: affected need/opportunity + observed harm pattern + structural pathway + institutional constraints + decision points + remedy pathway + harm-reduction metric + feedback review -> actionable structural harm map

structural_problem: People experience harm, risk, blocked opportunity, or unmet needs, but the cause is spread across rules, resource flows, institutional constraints, design defaults, and accountability gaps rather than one direct perpetrator. Because the pathway is not visible, the system treats the harm as isolated incidents, personal failure, cultural deficiency, or unavoidable complexity.

condition: The same harm or exclusion recurs across cases, sites, services, or time periods.

why_it_matters: Repetition suggests a pathway embedded in structure rather than a one-off mistake.

condition: Actors closest to the harm say they lack authority, resources, or permission to fix it.

why_it_matters: The problem may be governed by constraints above or around the frontline interaction.

condition: Formal access exists, but practical access is blocked by cost, documentation, timing, transport, language, digital requirements, eligibility, or trust.

why_it_matters: A system can be nominally open while structurally inaccessible.

condition: Outcome differences persist after direct conduct or isolated incidents are addressed.

why_it_matters: Remaining differences may be produced by resource distribution, exposure, incentives, or cumulative burden.

condition: Existing remedies focus on training, messaging, or awareness even though the map suggests resource, rule, or design causes.

why_it_matters: The intervention may be treating symptoms while leaving the structural pathway unchanged.

condition: The harmed group or affected participants identify burdens that are invisible in official process maps.

why_it_matters: Official maps often omit emotional labor, waiting, navigation, trust loss, informal knowledge, and repeated administrative work.

symptom: People must repeatedly prove eligibility, worthiness, innocence, need, or compliance across disconnected systems.

interpretation: Administrative burden may be acting as a structural barrier.

symptom: Frontline staff rely on informal workarounds to prevent harm.

interpretation: The official structure is not adequate to meet the affected need.

symptom: A policy or workflow appears neutral but produces predictable unequal burdens or exposures.

interpretation: The key issue may be pathway effect rather than stated intent.

symptom: Responsibility is continually passed between units, agencies, teams, or vendors.

interpretation: Distributed accountability may be preventing structural remedy.

symptom: The same remedy is repeatedly proposed without changing outcomes.

interpretation: The remedy may not match the causal pathway of harm.

symptom: People stop using the system, exit early, or avoid reporting because the process itself is costly or risky.

interpretation: Observed demand may undercount harm because the pathway deters participation.

root_tension: The archetype manages a tension between distributed causation and actionable responsibility. Structural harm often emerges from many interacting arrangements, but repair still requires specific decision points, owners, resources, metrics, and accountability. The map must be broad enough to see the pathway and concrete enough to change it.

case: A single actor directly caused the harm and the remedy is straightforward individual accountability.

why_not: Use investigation, adjudication, disciplinary action, or direct risk control first; structural mapping may be secondary.

case: The goal is only to describe social inequality or criticize an institution without identifying a changeable pathway.

why_not: This archetype is intervention-focused; theory labels and critique alone are not enough.

case: The issue is a one-time incident with no recurring pathway or institutional pattern.

why_not: Use incident analysis or root-cause analysis unless evidence shows recurrence.

case: The remedy is already known and the main work is implementation planning.

why_not: Use implementation planning, project governance, or change support; mapping is not the bottleneck.

case: Harm claims are being asserted without evidence, affected-party input, or a falsifiable pathway.

why_not: Use evidence gathering and uncertainty explicitness before asserting structural cause.

case: The intervention would expose affected people to retaliation, privacy loss, or stigma without safeguards.

why_not: Strengthen safety, confidentiality, and consent mechanisms before mapping participation.

structural_intervention: Define the affected need or opportunity, describe the recurring harm, trace the structural pathway through rules, resources, access gates, incentives, constraints, and decision points, validate the map with affected evidence and operational data, design a remedy that interrupts the pathway, and monitor whether harm and burden actually decline.

Define the affected need or opportunity

logic: State what people need, are entitled to, are trying to access, or are being prevented from doing. Avoid beginning with a favored explanation.

Describe the observed harm pattern

logic: Collect evidence of the recurring burden, risk, exclusion, exposure, delay, loss, or blocked opportunity. Mark uncertainty rather than overstating the case.

Trace the structural pathway

logic: Map how policies, workflows, resources, incentives, eligibility rules, locations, timing, data systems, and institutional dependencies produce the pattern.

Locate constraints and decision points

logic: Distinguish what individual actors can change from what requires policy, budget, design, governance, contract, or leadership action.

name: Check burden distribution and affected evidence

logic: Ask who pays the cost of the current structure and whether the map matches the experience of people navigating it.

Align remedy with pathway

logic: Choose interventions that change the actual causal pathway rather than symbolic proxies. Match rule causes with rule changes, resource causes with resource changes, and access causes with access redesign.

name: Measure harm reduction and unintended effects

logic: Track whether the remedy reduces burden or harm without shifting risk elsewhere, suppressing participation, or improving only surface metrics.

rule: If the harm is recurring and distributed across multiple arrangements, map the pathway before assigning a remedy.

rationale: Premature remedies often target visible symptoms instead of causal structure.

rule: If the map identifies a structural constraint, do not treat constrained actors as if effort alone can solve the problem.

rationale: Accountability should track authority and control.

rule: If affected participants identify burdens absent from official records, include those burdens as evidence to investigate, not as anecdotes to dismiss.

rationale: Administrative and relational burdens are often invisible from institutional vantage points.

rule: If a proposed remedy does not interrupt a mapped decision point or resource pathway, revise the remedy or record the gap.

rationale: Diagnosis and repair must be connected.

rule: If mapping participation could create retaliation, stigma, or privacy risk, use safeguards before collecting or publishing evidence.

rationale: Structural harm mapping should not increase harm to the people it is meant to protect.

invariant: Concrete affected need

preservation_logic: The map must remain anchored in a specific need, opportunity, capability, safety condition, or right-sized outcome rather than vague institutional critique.

invariant: Traceable pathway

preservation_logic: Every claim about structure should connect to a pathway from arrangement to burden, exposure, exclusion, or harm.

invariant: Actionable decision point

preservation_logic: The draft must identify where authority, design, funding, policy, or procedure can change the pathway.

invariant: Affected-party safety and dignity

preservation_logic: Evidence collection and remedy design must avoid stigma, extraction, retaliation, or tokenism.

invariant: Remedy-pathway alignment

preservation_logic: The remedy must be selected because it changes the mapped pathway, not because it is symbolically satisfying or easy to announce.

invariant: Harm-reduction validation

preservation_logic: The intervention must monitor whether harm decreases, not merely whether the institution completed an assessment.

outcome: Hidden structural pathways become visible and discussable.

indicator: Stakeholders can explain how specific arrangements produce burden or harm without relying on vague blame.

outcome: Remedies target leverage points rather than symptoms.

indicator: Proposed changes alter rules, resources, access points, incentives, accountability, or design choices identified in the map.

outcome: Affected people face lower burden, risk, exclusion, or blocked opportunity.

indicator: Pathway metrics and participant evidence show improved access, reduced delay, lower exposure, fewer preventable losses, or increased completion.

outcome: Accountability becomes better matched to authority.

indicator: Decision owners and remedy owners are named, and frontline actors are not blamed for constraints they cannot change.

outcome: Future harm is easier to detect early.

indicator: Monitoring includes pathway signals, not only end-state outcome measures.

prose_essence:
Structural Harm Mapping is the intervention pattern for making distributed harm actionable. It is used when people are being harmed, burdened, delayed, excluded, exposed to risk, or blocked from opportunity, but the cause cannot be reduced to one bad actor or one isolated event. The archetype traces how policies, access gates, incentives, institutional constraints, resources, timing, defaults, and accountability gaps combine into a repeatable pathway of harm.

The practical point is repair. A good structural harm map does not stop at saying “the system is the problem.” It explains which part of the system is doing what, who has authority over each decision point, what burden or need is affected, and how a remedy will interrupt the pathway.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when harm repeats across cases and ordinary explanations are too local. It fits when formal access exists but practical access is blocked, when frontline workers rely on hidden workarounds, when responsibility is passed between units, or when outcome differences persist after direct incidents have been addressed.

It is especially useful when people closest to the harm describe burdens that official process maps omit: waiting, paperwork, fear of retaliation, travel, digital friction, trust loss, informal knowledge, repeated proof requirements, or the cumulative cost of navigating disconnected systems.

Do not use it as a substitute for direct accountability when a specific actor caused a clear violation. Also do not use it as a general-purpose critique label. The archetype requires evidence, a bounded pathway, decision points, remedy alignment, and harm-reduction monitoring.

prose_structural_problem:
The structural problem is distributed causation without actionable visibility. Each local rule, metric, workflow, form, or constraint may appear reasonable when inspected alone. Together, however, they can produce predictable harm or blocked opportunity. Because no single part looks solely responsible, the burden is often interpreted as personal failure, lack of effort, isolated error, cultural deficiency, or unavoidable complexity.

Structural Harm Mapping changes the unit of analysis. It asks how the arrangement produces the pattern: which route people must travel, which gates they must pass, which resources they lack, which incentives shape decisions, which constraints limit helpers, and which authority owners could alter the pathway.

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention begins by naming the affected need or opportunity. The draft should say what is being harmed before explaining why. It then describes the recurring harm pattern and traces the path from institutional arrangements to lived burden. The map should include rules, resource flows, access points, eligibility criteria, timing, geography, digital requirements, incentives, accountability gaps, and informal workarounds.

Once the pathway is visible, the archetype locates decision points. These are the places where a rule could change, a resource could move, an appeal could be added, a default could be redesigned, a metric could be corrected, or an accountable owner could be assigned. The remedy must match the pathway. If the map shows a documentation barrier, an awareness campaign is not enough. If the map shows resource scarcity, a language change alone is not enough. If the map shows a harmful incentive, training may help but cannot be the whole remedy.

The final step is monitoring. The intervention should measure whether burden and harm decrease, not only whether the organization completed a review. Good monitoring includes pathway signals such as abandonment points, delay, appeal success, repeated documentation, hidden workload, and participant-reported burden.

prose_key_components:
### Affected Need or Opportunity

This component states what is at stake: care, safety, housing stability, learning, participation, mobility, income, recognition, due process, access to a service, or some other concrete opportunity. It prevents the draft from floating into generic institutional criticism.

```yaml
component:
  slug: affected_need_or_opportunity
  name: Affected Need or Opportunity
  role: Defines what basic need, participation pathway, capability, safety condition, or opportunity is being harmed or blocked.
  notes: The map should start with the affected need before it proposes an explanation.
```

### Harm Pattern Description

A harm pattern describes what recurs. It may be a repeated delay, exclusion, exposure, attrition point, preventable loss, risk concentration, or burden shift. The pattern should be bounded and evidence-aware.

```yaml
component:
  slug: harm_pattern_description
  name: Harm Pattern Description
  role: Describes the recurring harm, burden, exclusion, delay, loss, or exposure that appears across cases.
  notes: The pattern should be supported by data, testimony, records, process evidence, or repeated observation.
```

### Structural Pathway

The structural pathway is the core component. It links arrangements to effects. It explains how rules, resources, access gates, incentives, geography, timing, technical systems, or institutional dependencies produce the harm.

```yaml
component:
  slug: structural_pathway
  name: Structural Pathway
  role: Traces how rules, resource flows, access points, incentives, eligibility gates, timing, spatial arrangements, or institutional dependencies produce the harm.
  notes: The pathway should be specific enough that a remedy can target it.
```

### Institutional Constraint

Institutional constraints explain why individual actors may not be able to fix the harm locally. A staff member may be constrained by policy, contract, funding, staffing, liability, platform tooling, or performance metrics.

```yaml
component:
  slug: institutional_constraint
  name: Institutional Constraint
  role: Identifies the formal or informal limits that shape what actors can practically do inside the system.
  notes: Constraints help match accountability to authority rather than blaming whoever is closest to the harm.
```

### Access and Resource Map

This component maps the route people must travel to obtain help, permission, recognition, support, or opportunity. It includes costs, forms, language, technology, transport, time, trust, documents, and hidden knowledge.

```yaml
component:
  slug: access_and_resource_map
  name: Access and Resource Map
  role: Shows where people must obtain resources, permission, information, services, support, or recognition in order to meet the affected need.
  notes: Practical access can fail even when formal access exists.
```

### Decision Point Map

A structural map becomes actionable only when it finds decision points. A decision point is a place where policy, funding, workflow, design, eligibility, staffing, data, or accountability could change.

```yaml
component:
  slug: decision_point_map
  name: Decision Point Map
  role: Locates points where a different rule, allocation, design choice, or discretionary judgment could reduce harm.
  notes: Without decision points, the map may explain harm without creating repair.
```

### Burden Distribution Check

This component asks who pays the cost of the current structure. Burdens may appear as time, money, documentation work, risk, stress, exposure, lost wages, unpaid coordination, or repeated self-advocacy.

```yaml
component:
  slug: burden_distribution_check
  name: Burden Distribution Check
  role: Checks who absorbs extra cost, risk, delay, documentation work, emotional labor, exposure, or uncertainty under the current structure.
  notes: Remedies should not simply shift burden to people with less power or fewer resources.
```

### Affected Voice and Evidence Check

Affected participants often see friction that official records omit. This component integrates lived evidence with operational data while protecting privacy, dignity, and safety.

```yaml
component:
  slug: affected_voice_and_evidence_check
  name: Affected Voice and Evidence Check
  role: Integrates evidence from people who experience the pathway with operational data and institutional records.
  notes: Participation must not be extractive; affected people should help validate assumptions and remedy fit.
```

### Remedy Pathway

The remedy pathway specifies how the harmful structure will be interrupted. It should match the diagnosis: access barriers need access redesign, resource gaps need resource changes, incentive problems need incentive changes, and accountability gaps need owner-and-review structures.

```yaml
component:
  slug: remedy_pathway
  name: Remedy Pathway
  role: Specifies how a structural change, resource shift, access redesign, policy revision, or accountability process will interrupt the harmful pathway.
  notes: A symbolic response is insufficient when the mapped pathway is operational or material.
```

### Harm Reduction Metric

A harm reduction metric tests whether repair is real. It should track outcomes and pathway indicators, including whether people stop trying to use the system because the pathway remains too costly.

```yaml
component:
  slug: harm_reduction_metric
  name: Harm Reduction Metric
  role: Defines how the intervention will know whether harm, burden, exclusion, delay, or blocked opportunity has actually decreased.
  notes: Good metrics detect burden shifting and unintended effects, not only headline improvement.
```

prose_common_mechanisms:
Mechanisms implement the archetype; they are not the archetype itself. A structural audit, equity impact assessment, or dashboard is only useful when it supports the full pathway-to-remedy logic.

### Equity Impact Assessment

An equity impact assessment can reveal uneven effects of a policy, program, or design. In this archetype, it is an evidence and review mechanism. It should feed a pathway map and remedy decision rather than remain a standalone report.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: equity_impact_assessment
  name: Equity Impact Assessment
  mechanism_type: test_or_assessment
  role: Assesses how a policy, program, design, or resource allocation affects different groups and whether harms or benefits are unevenly distributed.
```

### Structural Audit

A structural audit inspects rules, workflows, incentives, and resource flows. It implements the diagnostic part of the archetype but must be paired with affected evidence, decision points, and remedy tracking.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: structural_audit
  name: Structural Audit
  mechanism_type: method
  role: Reviews rules, workflows, resource flows, incentives, eligibility gates, and institutional dependencies to identify structural sources of harm.
```

### Access Pathway Map

An access pathway map shows how people enter, move through, or drop out of a system. It is useful when formal availability hides practical exclusion.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: access_pathway_map
  name: Access Pathway Map
  mechanism_type: method
  role: Maps the steps, requirements, documents, technologies, costs, waiting periods, and informal knowledge needed to reach a service or opportunity.
```

### Policy Pathway Analysis

Policy pathway analysis follows a rule from text to implementation. It asks how a policy becomes forms, thresholds, staff discretion, resource allocation, sanctions, notices, and participant burdens.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: policy_pathway_analysis
  name: Policy Pathway Analysis
  mechanism_type: procedure
  role: Traces how a policy provision becomes operational decisions, frontline procedures, participant burdens, and measurable outcomes.
```

### Institutional Barrier Review

Institutional barrier review focuses on the barriers created by institutional design: office hours, locations, language, paperwork, appeals, staffing, identity verification, eligibility, or service fragmentation.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: institutional_barrier_review
  name: Institutional Barrier Review
  mechanism_type: procedure
  role: Identifies barriers created by institutional rules, forms, locations, schedules, staffing patterns, language requirements, or accountability gaps.
```

### Social Determinants Mapping

Social determinants mapping is a domain-adapted mechanism, especially common in health and community systems. It maps upstream conditions that shape downstream outcomes.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: social_determinants_mapping
  name: Social Determinants Mapping
  mechanism_type: method
  role: Maps upstream conditions such as housing, transport, employment, education, neighborhood exposure, or service access that shape downstream outcomes.
```

### Systems Harm Analysis

Systems harm analysis combines systems mapping with harm review. It is useful when multiple institutions interact, but it must still identify specific decision points and remedy owners.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: systems_harm_analysis
  name: Systems Harm Analysis
  mechanism_type: method
  role: Combines systems mapping with harm analysis to show how interacting institutions, incentives, and constraints generate recurring damage.
```

### Affected-Party Review Panel

An affected-party review panel gives people who experience the pathway a structured role in checking the map and remedy. It must be designed with safety, privacy, compensation, and non-retaliation safeguards.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: affected_party_review_panel
  name: Affected-Party Review Panel
  mechanism_type: institution
  role: Creates a structured forum where people affected by the pathway review evidence, correct assumptions, and evaluate proposed remedies.
```

### Remedy Co-Design Workshop

A remedy co-design workshop helps align the repair with the diagnosed pathway. It should include implementers, authority owners, and affected participants, not only communications or compliance staff.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: remedy_co_design_workshop
  name: Remedy Co-Design Workshop
  mechanism_type: workflow
  role: Brings implementers, decision owners, and affected participants together to design interventions that match the mapped structural pathway.
```

### Harm Reduction Dashboard

A dashboard is useful only after the pathway and remedy are known. It should include burden, access, and unintended-effect signals, not just final outcomes.

```yaml
mechanism:
  slug: harm_reduction_dashboard
  name: Harm Reduction Dashboard
  mechanism_type: metric_or_dashboard
  role: Tracks pathway indicators, outcome disparities, burden measures, and unintended effects after a remedy is implemented.
```

prose_failure_modes:
A common failure mode is theory-label drift: the draft says “structural violence” or “systemic harm” without tracing the pathway. The mitigation is to require affected need, harm pattern, structural pathway, decision point, remedy, and metric.

Another failure mode is performative assessment. The organization completes a report, workshop, or dashboard but leaves the pathway unchanged. The mitigation is remedy ownership and harm-reduction review.

A third failure mode is burden shifting. A remedy reduces a visible metric by moving cost, time, risk, or emotional labor onto affected people or frontline staff. The mitigation is paired outcome and burden measurement.

A fourth failure mode is overgeneralization. A local pattern is treated as universal or attributed to a group without context-specific evidence. The mitigation is bounded claims, uncertainty notes, and local validation.

A fifth failure mode is remedy mismatch. The map identifies eligibility rules or resource gaps, but the intervention is only training or messaging. The mitigation is remedy-pathway alignment.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Structural Harm Mapping is distinct from whole-system diagnosis because it is not trying to understand the whole system for its own sake. It maps pathways from arrangements to harm and repair.

It is distinct from consequence cascade mapping because cascades often begin with an event or action. Structural harm mapping focuses on durable arrangements that repeatedly produce harm.

It is distinct from epistemic inclusion design because affected knowledge is a component, not the whole intervention. The archetype uses that knowledge to validate a structural pathway and remedy.

It is distinct from category boundary audit because categories matter only when they are part of the harmful pathway. A category audit may be one input to the map.

It is distinct from procedural fairness design because fair procedure can still leave structural burden untouched. A process can be respectful and consistent while still inaccessible, under-resourced, or misaligned with need.

It is distinct from equity adjustment because mapping diagnoses the pathway that may justify adjustment. Equity adjustment is a possible remedy neighbor, not the same pattern.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In healthcare, the archetype can map how discharge procedures, medication costs, referral delays, transport, language access, and appointment schedules produce preventable readmissions.

In education, it can map how prerequisites, placement tests, advising delays, course availability, fees, and hidden requirements block completion.

In housing, it can map how notice procedures, rental assistance timing, hearing schedules, document requirements, and legal access shape eviction outcomes.

In organizations, it can map how incentives, staffing, contractor status, safety reporting friction, retaliation risk, and feedback gaps suppress injury reporting.

In technology governance, it can map how defaults, automated decisions, appeal queues, identity verification, support visibility, and data retention produce account loss, exposure, or exclusion.

prose_non_examples:
A disparity dashboard without pathway analysis is not Structural Harm Mapping. It may trigger the archetype, but it does not perform it.

A public critique that names structural harm without evidence, decision points, or remedy is not the archetype.

An equity training delivered after a resource or eligibility problem is not the archetype unless it is part of a remedy that matches the mapped pathway.

A one-time direct violation corrected by ordinary accountability is not the archetype unless recurrence reveals a structural pathway.

A listening session that extracts stories without giving affected people influence over the map or remedy is not the archetype.

prose_tradeoffs:
Structural Harm Mapping trades simplicity for fidelity. Direct blame is simpler than distributed causation, but it may miss why the harm repeats. A full structural map is more faithful, but it can become overwhelming.

It also trades transparency against safety. Publishing a map can support accountability, but sensitive details can expose affected participants, frontline staff, or vulnerable groups. The safer approach may be layered disclosure: public conclusions, protected evidence, and clear remedy commitments.

Finally, it trades urgency against certainty. Waiting for perfect evidence can extend harm; acting too quickly can misdiagnose causes. The practical solution is provisional mapping with explicit uncertainty, immediate protective steps where needed, and revision as evidence improves.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
Preserve the affected need. The map must always be about a concrete need, opportunity, burden, risk, or harm, not a floating accusation.

Preserve the pathway. Every structural claim should connect an arrangement to a mechanism of harm. If the link is uncertain, mark it as uncertain.

Preserve actionability. The map should identify decision points and authority owners. A beautiful map without remedy points is incomplete.

Preserve affected-party dignity. Evidence collection must not become extraction, surveillance, stigma, or retaliation risk.

Preserve remedy-pathway alignment. The remedy should change the pathway that creates harm, not merely the narrative around it.

Preserve monitoring. The work is not done when a report is published. The test is whether burden and harm decrease without being shifted elsewhere.

prose_target_outcomes:
The primary outcome is visibility: people can explain how specific arrangements produce recurring harm. The second outcome is better remedy selection: interventions target rules, resources, access points, incentives, accountability, or designs that are actually connected to the harm. The third outcome is reduced burden or harm for affected people. The fourth outcome is accountability matched to authority, so constrained actors are not blamed for problems they cannot solve and decision owners are not hidden behind complexity.

A successful draft also improves early detection. Once pathway signals are monitored, the system can see harm before it becomes a crisis.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
The first tuning dimension is map scope. A narrow map can produce a fast remedy but may miss upstream drivers. A broad map can reveal interacting causes but may become too large to act on. A mature draft often uses layers: a broad context map, a priority pathway, and a first remedy point.

The second dimension is evidence standard. Urgent harm may justify provisional action while evidence is still being gathered. Lower-risk contexts may allow a slower and more rigorous causal review. The key invariant is explicit uncertainty: do not overstate what the map proves.

The third dimension is participation depth. Affected participants may be consulted, included as reviewers, compensated as co-designers, or given governance authority. Higher participation improves validity and legitimacy, but it must be safe and non-extractive.

The fourth dimension is remedy depth. Remedies may remove a single barrier, redesign an access pathway, change resource allocation, adjust incentives, revise policy, or rebuild accountability. The remedy should be proportional to the mapped pathway and tested against actual harm reduction.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
Access Barrier Mapping is the most common named variant. It focuses on practical access: documents, cost, hours, transport, digital tools, eligibility, language, and informal knowledge. It remains under the parent because access barriers are one kind of structural harm pathway.

Institutional Constraint Analysis focuses on the constraints that make harmful outcomes locally hard to avoid. It is useful when frontline actors are blamed for rules, metrics, or resource limits they do not control.

Cumulative Burden Mapping adds a temporal and cross-system layer. It asks how many small frictions accumulate into large harm. This variant is especially useful when each single requirement appears tolerable in isolation.

Remedy Pathway Alignment is a downstream variant that checks whether the proposed fix actually interrupts the mapped pathway. It prevents diagnosis and repair from drifting apart.

Near names include systemic harm mapping, structural violence mapping, inequity pathway mapping, institutional barrier mapping, and distributed harm mapping. Equity impact assessment, structural audit, and social determinants mapping should usually be treated as mechanisms rather than standalone archetypes.

Access Barrier Mapping

distinctive_feature: Focuses on the route into a resource, service, right, role, or opportunity.

distinct_from_parent: It is narrower than structural_harm_mapping because it concentrates on entry barriers and access routes.

still_same_parent_because: The access barrier is still one structural pathway by which distributed arrangements produce harm.

source_primes: structural_violence equity constraint

example_domains: healthcare education public_services employment housing

example: Mapping how documentation, hours, transport, and digital forms prevent eligible residents from receiving support.

domain: education

example: Tracing how prerequisites, placement tests, fees, advising gaps, and scheduling block access to a program.

failure_modes: Treating the barrier as a user motivation problem rather than a pathway design problem.

failure_modes: Removing one gate while leaving cumulative burden intact.

Institutional Constraint Analysis

distinctive_feature: Highlights constraints that make individual discretion insufficient.

distinct_from_parent: It concentrates on institutional constraints rather than the full harm pathway and remedy cycle.

still_same_parent_because: The analysis remains a route for mapping how system structure produces harm and identifying remedy points.

example_domains:
organizations
healthcare
public administration
education
technology operations

domain: healthcare

example: Tracing how reimbursement rules and appointment slots make follow-up care difficult despite clinician intent.

domain: organization

example: Mapping how performance targets reward case closure while discouraging help for complex cases.

failure_modes: Blaming constrained actors after the analysis has already shown they lack authority.

failure_modes: Treating every constraint as illegitimate rather than distinguishing necessary constraints from harmful ones.

Cumulative Burden Mapping

distinctive_feature: Focuses on accumulation and interaction across layers.

distinct_from_parent: It adds a temporal and cross-system burden layer to the general structural pathway map.

still_same_parent_because: It still performs the parent function of tracing structural pathways from arrangements to harm and remedy points.

example_domains:
environmental exposure
public benefits
school discipline
clinical care
workplace compliance

domain: public benefits

example: Mapping how repeated forms, appointments, verifications, and travel costs create attrition.

domain: workplace

example: Tracing how small scheduling, surveillance, and reporting demands accumulate into unequal workload burden.

failure_modes: Averaging away cumulative burden by looking only at single-step compliance.

failure_modes: Counting burdens without locating changeable decision points.

Remedy Pathway Alignment

distinctive_feature: Focuses on matching intervention leverage to the diagnosed structure.

distinct_from_parent: It is a downstream validation subtype, not the whole mapping process.

still_same_parent_because: The alignment test depends on the parent map and preserves the parent invariant that remedies must change the pathway of harm.

source_primes: leverage_points feedback accountability

example_domains:
policy reform
organizational redesign
public service improvement
technology governance

domain: technology governance

example: Rejecting a user education campaign when the map shows that the default workflow creates the harmful exposure.

example: Aligning a retention remedy with advising bottlenecks and course availability rather than only student motivation messaging.

failure_modes: Using the map to justify a remedy chosen before the mapping began.

failure_modes: Optimizing a metric while leaving the harmful pathway unchanged.

near_names:
Systemic Harm Mapping
Structural Violence Mapping
Inequity Pathway Mapping
Institutional Barrier Mapping
Social Determinants Mapping
Equity Impact Assessment