Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
Document 2-3 pre-mortem failure modes with every…
For significant decisions, add a fifth field documenting pre-mortem risks (2-3 specific ways the decision could fail) to preserve concerns that hindsight bias will erase.
Weekly
Add a single recurring check at the end of each weekly review that compares your operational handbook to your actual operations and updates discrepancies immediately.
After every operational failure, run five blameless…
After any operational failure, write a blameless post-mortem using five questions: what happened (factual description), what was the timeline of contributing events, what were the systemic factors, what are the action items (specific system changes), and what would have prevented this.
After explaining a system, revisit every 'obviously'…
After explaining a system to someone with zero context, revisit any point where you said 'obviously' or 'of course' and document the unstated assumption those words concealed.
After strong reactions, record facts and interpretations…
After any event producing strong reactions, spend 90 seconds recording observations in a two-column format (left: camera-recordable facts, right: interpretations) before analysis, because this separation prevents retroactive rewriting of evidence to fit conclusions.
Complete the incident timeline before writing any causal…
When drafting incident postmortems or failure analyses, complete the timeline of observable events (with timestamps and measurements) before writing any causal analysis, because mixing observation and explanation during collection produces defensive filtering.
Document every pattern with three fields
For each named pattern in your Pattern Dictionary, document three required fields: the pattern name, its observable trigger conditions, and the default behavioral response it produces.
Record five elements at the moment of every significant…
Record decision context at the moment of commitment using five elements: (1) decision statement, (2) forces/constraints/emotions active at choice point, (3) expected consequences with timeline, (4) confidence level 1-10, (5) review trigger date—before hindsight bias can rewrite your reasoning.
If you deliberated for 60+ seconds, the reasoning is worth…
Set the threshold for decision context documentation at any choice where you deliberated between options for more than sixty seconds, because if you considered alternatives consciously, the reasoning is worth preserving against memory reconstruction.
Reconstruct the information environment from records…
Before evaluating any past decision, reconstruct the information environment that existed at decision time using contemporaneous records rather than memory, then evaluate the decision against that environment only.
Record decisions with five fields
Document decisions using five fields: what you decided, alternatives considered, information available and missing, optimization criteria, and conditions for revisiting—rather than recording only conclusions.
Have AI argue against your decision before finalizing…
Before finalizing significant decision records, have an AI argue against your reasoning and append the strongest objection to your record, preserving the full deliberation rather than only your preferred conclusion.
Document your knowledge system in 5 parts
Document system operations in five components—capture rules, processing workflow, retrieval method, review protocol, and evolution history—because each component addresses a distinct failure mode in knowledge system sustainability.
Attach scope metadata to every schema — where it was built…
Store each schema with explicit scope documentation specifying the domain where it was built and the structural conditions it assumes, treating scope as mandatory metadata rather than optional annotation.
When forced into a binary decision, document the full…
When forced to make a binary decision after spectrum-based deliberation, document the richer multi-dimensional signal alongside the binary outcome so future analysis can recover what the compression discarded.
Structure long documents in three disclosure layers
When documenting information longer than one page, structure it in three disclosure layers: single-sentence summary (Layer 1), paragraph-per-section abstracts (Layer 2), and full detail (Layer 3), with each layer independently meaningful.
Add boundary clauses to validated schemas
Reformulate validated schemas with explicit boundary clauses that specify the conditions under which they were tested and the conditions under which they remain untested.
Keep a separate anomaly log with three fields
Create a dedicated anomaly log separate from regular notes where each entry records what you expected, what happened, and which schema generated the expectation.
Log schema changes with 4 fields
Write schema evolution log entries with four mandatory fields - date, schema affected in original language not current interpretation, specific triggering evidence or encounter, and the replacement belief - to defeat hindsight bias through fixed external records.
Keep schema evolution logs minimal (4 fields) and review…
Maintain schema evolution logs with minimum viable entries of four fields - date, schema affected, what changed, and what prompted the change - reviewed weekly, to generate a dataset about cognitive patterns that introspection alone cannot produce.
Document what the old belief was protecting — the lost…
For each evolved schema, document not just old and new versions but also what the old belief was protecting or enabling, because identifying the lost function reveals emotional costs of revision and increases honesty about unrevised beliefs.
Track where each schema came from — prioritize…
For each schema you operate on, document source provenance in a single field—specific person, book, cultural norm, direct experience, or unknown—then prioritize verification effort by source weakness.
Document every agent with five components
Document every agent in a structured five-component format: (1) Name, (2) Trigger, (3) Conditions, (4) Actions, (5) Success criteria, to enable systematic review and prevent silent degradation.
Write agent actions as procedures a stranger could follow…
Write agent action steps as specific ordered procedures rather than aspirations or principles, requiring sufficient granularity that someone unfamiliar could execute them without clarification.