Commonplace doctrine
Type: kb/types/definition.md
Commonplace doctrine is the standing instruction a worker inherits with binding force when its runtime loads it: root AGENTS.md, plus the collection contracts, type specs, and skill the runtime supplies to that worker. A handoff is a delta from it — purpose, deviations, and deliberately open choices — and the worker completes the rest from the doctrine rather than from guesswork.
The compound is the technical term. Bare doctrine is ordinary English — a standing framework a community adopts for how it normally understands and conducts work — and may abbreviate the compound where nothing else could be meant. In the retained planning reports, unqualified doctrine names the source-side military doctrines under comparison (MCDP 1, ADRP 6-0); write the compound there.
What it includes
- Adopted, not merely available. A methodology is available for selection and binds nothing by itself; the doctrine is the selection. The same material changes role when a binding path adopts it.
- Interpretive as well as prescriptive. It supplies a shared way to read a task and derive means, not only a list of rules. This is what lets a compact handoff stay intelligible.
- The retained delta over the model's repertoire. Departures from broad professional defaults, selections among equally conventional alternatives, and binding restatements of practices the model already endorses.
What it excludes
- Text no worker runtime loads. Force comes from the consumption path, not from content or declared intent; a rule in a file nobody loads is not doctrine for anyone.
- Institutional memory. Observations, evaluation results, and accepted decisions are evidence or commitments until adopted into a binding path.
- Exact protocols and codified enforcement. Grammars, digests, validators, and schemas share the control plane but carry their own verification regime; calling them doctrine hides it.
- Task authority. The doctrine supplies interpretation and defaults. Authority, owned mutations, task-specific constraints, and acceptance stay explicit in the handoff.
Misuse Cases
- Omitting a handoff rule because "the doctrine covers it" without checking that the worker's runtime loads the file that carries it.
- Treating an omitted detail the doctrine does not determine as inherited. It is delegated, irrelevant, or a gap.
- Using bare doctrine in a passage where source-side doctrine is also in play.
Relevant Notes:
- System-definition artifact — defined-in: the authority-path family Commonplace doctrine belongs to, as its natural-language standing member
- Intent-framed delegation is a control regime, not a short prompt — rests-on: why shared meaning lets a handoff be short without supplying the regime's authority
- A capable agent needs methodology selection, not just relevant knowledge — rests-on: knowing several methods selects none; the doctrine is the selection
- Borrowing can operate through retained artifacts or weight activation — rests-on: the retained delta over the weight-resident repertoire
- Commitment, not derivation, creates new ground truth — rests-on: evidence becomes doctrine only by adoption
- Knowledge artifact — see-also: the contrasting family, consumed as evidence or advice without binding