The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types and 2 molecules
Before entering any design conversation or architecture review, write one sentence answering 'What am I assuming is already settled here?' to surface expertise-hidden assumptions that should be re-examined.
Design multi-class classification systems with mutually exclusive categories when items can only be one type, and multi-label systems when items can legitimately belong to multiple categories simultaneously.
Before creating or reorganizing any hierarchical structure, ask what question each level answers—top level for domain identification, leaf level for specific item selection, and intermediate levels for navigation steps between.
For each intermediate level in a hierarchy, test whether removing it and promoting its children one level up would lose meaningful organization—if not, flatten it, because unnecessary levels are pure navigational tax.
Distinguish structural hierarchy depth (encoding real containment or inheritance) from bureaucratic depth (added for perceived tidiness) by asking what would break if you removed each level—keep only levels whose removal would destroy actual functional boundaries.
Override properties rather than identities—preserve the child's relationship to its parent category while modifying specific inherited traits, as overriding identity signals you need a different category, not an override.
Before adding another level of nesting, first attempt to flatten the hierarchy one level and use tags or links to preserve relationships, as deep hierarchies are more expensive to maintain than flat hierarchies with rich cross-references.
When navigation to any item requires remembering a path more than three levels deep, audit whether each nesting level provides unique decision-making value—if you cannot explain what decision a level enables, eliminate that level as noise.
Combine hierarchical folders (for coarse structure), tags (for cross-cutting themes), explicit links (for semantic relationships), and maps of content (for curated entry points) rather than relying on any single organizational mechanism, as each hierarchy type makes different questions answerable.