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| 1 | +// SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0 |
| 2 | +// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Jonathan D.A. Jewell <j.d.a.jewell@open.ac.uk> |
| 3 | += RSR Philosophy — The Estate's Operating Doctrine (canonical) |
| 4 | +:toc: preamble |
| 5 | +:icons: font |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +[.lead] |
| 8 | +This is the *canonical* statement of the operating principles every hyperpolymath |
| 9 | +repository is worked under. It is the source that `rsr-template-repo` operationalises |
| 10 | +and that the estate arrival-pack projects, in summary form, into the top of every |
| 11 | +`CLAUDE.md`. The owner's `manifesto` states the same doctrine in its own voice; |
| 12 | +where wording must be reconciled, the manifesto prevails. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +The principles are deliberately few and blunt. They describe not only *what* good |
| 15 | +work is but the *order* and *manner* in which it is undertaken. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +== Solutions at source |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +*Fix the canonical, upstream origin of a problem — never patch the downstream |
| 20 | +symptom.* |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +When a defect, a drift, or a wrong setting appears in many places, it is almost |
| 23 | +never many problems: it is one problem at a source, expressed many times. |
| 24 | +Remediating the copies while leaving the source untouched guarantees the problem |
| 25 | +returns — and worse, makes it look solved. The estate's own shape makes the source |
| 26 | +explicit: `standards → rsr-template-repo → (every repo)`. A fix that belongs at the |
| 27 | +template does not belong, hand-applied, in hundreds of leaves. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +Two obligations follow, and neither is optional: |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +. *Find the source.* Before acting, trace the thing back to where it is actually |
| 32 | + defined — the template, the generator, the canon, the single point everything |
| 33 | + else inherits from — and fix it there. |
| 34 | +. *Be mindful of every up- and down-stream.* A change at a source propagates. |
| 35 | + Before making it, know what feeds the thing you are changing (upstream) and what |
| 36 | + depends on it (downstream), and ensure the change is safe across all of them. A |
| 37 | + correct fix that breaks a downstream consumer is not yet a fix. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +Where the source genuinely cannot be reached in one pass — an upstream you do not |
| 40 | +own, a change gated on owner ratification — remediate the downstream *and* record |
| 41 | +the source fix as the real work still owed. Silently patching the symptom as if it |
| 42 | +were the cure is itself a soundness hole (see _fail loudly_). |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +This principle stands beside its two siblings: *holes before goals* and *always |
| 45 | +fail loudly*. Together they govern the order of work (holes first), the manner of |
| 46 | +work (loudly, never silently green), and the locus of work (at the source, never |
| 47 | +the symptom). |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +== Holes before goals |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +Fix soundness holes before features, optimisation, or documentation. A hole is |
| 52 | +anywhere the system can be wrong without saying so. Goals are everything one would |
| 53 | +rather be doing. Let the holes set the agenda — a goal reached on top of a hole is |
| 54 | +not reached. |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +== Always fail loudly |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +No silent green. A check that cannot fail is not a check; a fallback that hides a |
| 59 | +broken precondition is a forged result. Seams (ABI / FFI) are sealed and proven, |
| 60 | +not assumed. Prefer a build that breaks to a build that lies. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +== The full Doctrine |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +The complete, always-current operating Doctrine is maintained as estate-common |
| 65 | +content in the arrival-pack and projected into every repository's `CLAUDE.md`. In |
| 66 | +addition to the three principles above it holds: ground-truth by running the tool, |
| 67 | +not trusting status docs; distrust the neural for exactness (licences, invariants, |
| 68 | +equivalence belong to PLASMA, not an LLM); squabble, don't bypass (reach green by |
| 69 | +satisfying the gate, never by admin-override); no automated licence edits; no |
| 70 | +deletion by access-recency; wire first; always sign; report faithfully (no |
| 71 | +overclaim); stop-first on costly or outward-facing actions; boundaries are real; |
| 72 | +and equivalence as identity. |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +== See also |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +* `hyperpolymath/manifesto` — the doctrine in the owner's voice. |
| 77 | +* `hyperpolymath/rsr-template-repo` — `RSR-PHILOSOPHY.adoc` and the arrival-pack |
| 78 | + that projects the Doctrine summary into every `CLAUDE.md`. |
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