Methodology

Type: types/tag-readme.md

How an agent comes to work by a method: which of many known approaches it selects, how an external methodology becomes operative in it, how a stated intent controls its local choices, and how far a method transfers between problems. The notes here are about methodology as a thing an agent holds and applies. The defining note is actionable methodology: actionable is a relation between a methodology, an operator, available operations, a target, and a setting, not a property of a text. What a methodology is relative to a theory, and how the two execute together, lives under learning-theory.

Selection and borrowing

• A capable agent needs methodology selection, not just relevant knowledge — a capable agent knows many individually relevant but mutually incompatible approaches, so task control requires choosing one
• Borrowing can operate through retained artifacts or weight activation — an external methodology becomes operative either by being retained in the system or by being activated in the model
• Weight-resident methodologies provide context-efficient behavioral compression — a compact cue activates a much larger methodology the weights already hold, at low context cost and with less inspectability

Borrowing and transfer

• A borrowed pattern transfers only as far as source and target share a mechanism — transferred warrant reaches only the layer where the mechanism is shared; beyond that the borrowing is analogy
• Source-adoption policy — how Commonplace decides which borrowed ideas to adopt: a fast pass for programming patterns, target-side warrant for other sources
• Alexander's patterns connect to knowledge system design at multiple levels — a worked borrowing: pattern form to typed contracts, generative process to incremental codification, with the looser analogy marked
• Literature reuse can reverse a paper's hierarchy of contributions — the distinctions a paper built for its result can be its most reusable output elsewhere

Control and transfer

• Intent controls a local choice only when it distinguishes its live alternatives — a stated intent controls a choice only when it changes which live alternatives are admissible or preferred
• Problem matches guide method search; mechanism matches bound transfer — a problem match generates candidate source methods; a mechanism match is what bounds whether the method transfers
• Decorrelated reviewers still share the field's prior, so read their findings by the claim's stance — a review methodology's blind spot: reviewers converge on consensus where a claim is original, so findings are read by the claim's stance

Related Tags

• context-engineering — where borrowing and weight-resident methods meet the context budget