Rules that run
Every mechanism in this system pays for itself. A check earns its place by what it catches, keeps a record of those catches, and is removed when the record goes quiet.
From prose to structure
A rule can be carried three ways. As prose someone should remember. As a check that runs on its own at a fixed point. Or as a scheduled review. Prose is the weakest carrier: measured on this system's own conventions, about three of four new documents drifted off a written specification while the specification sat loaded and readable. The same specification, turned into a check that runs when a file is written, committed or published, holds without being remembered.
The rules, by kind
The rules of this practice, by kind: what each governs and what carries it.
| What it governs | How it is carried |
|---|---|
| Writing: voice, register, sentence discipline | Prose instructions loaded at every session start, plus the human catching drift. The weakest carrier, and knowingly so. |
| Document shape: what each note and record must carry | An automated check against a written specification, at write, commit and publish. It refuses what fails and prints the fix. |
| Claims: the grades, and what may ship at which grade | The entry and exit checks, plus the two human acts described on the trust page. |
| Session conduct: read the state first, propose before acting | Written working instructions. Discipline, caught in review when it slips. |
| Infrastructure reach: who can reach what, what runs where | The servers' own network rules and account rights. Structure cannot be forgotten, only changed deliberately. |
How a rule is carried follows its record. A rule stays prose while prose holds. When its record shows drift, it moves into a check or into the structure itself. Removal is the same movement in reverse: a check whose record goes quiet is taken out, and the removal is recorded with what the check had caught.