Reference
ReferenceNormative
Glossary
The terms this site uses in a specific sense, and the ones it deliberately refuses.
| Term | Means here |
|---|
| Brief | The dossier of everything learned from the client. Versioned, and non-normative once accepted references exist. → |
| Product reference | The canonical cross-module product picture: actors, concepts, module ownership, journeys and vocabulary. → |
| Module reference | One module's domain model, open decisions and normative functional requirements. → |
| Open questions | Living sections in the product or module reference. They own what remains undecided at that scope and who settles it. → |
| Decision record | By what means, where it is expensive to reverse. The only place technology may be named. → |
| Work register | A module's WBS epics and stories, with delivery gates and status. Separate from the module reference by authority. → |
| Authority map | The root product reference section that says which document owns each kind of truth. Exactly one exists. → |
| Term | Means here |
|---|
| Requirement identifier | PREFIX-nnn. Never renumbered, never reused. The only durable link between a line of code and the rule it serves. |
| Observable | What someone must be able to check to say a rule holds. Replaces any notion of "conformity". |
| WBS code | <epic>.<story>[.<task>], zero-padded. Positional, never derived from a name. |
| Tracer bullet | One vertical slice through every layer along one narrow path, demoable alone. The unit a story is sized in. |
| Delivery gate | An epic annotation stating whether work is ready, delivered or awaiting named dependencies. It is not a status. |
| Assumption | A temporary answer with an owner, an expiry and a reversal cost. Without all three it is a decision nobody made. |
| Frontier | Planned stories whose delivery gates and story dependencies permit work to start now. |
| Term | Means here |
|---|
| Open system | One the client sets to match how they work, rather than reshaping how they work to match a rigid flow. → |
| The two decisions | Is the schema ready? — decided by reversal cost, done now, always. Is the administration surface built? — decided by who will use it. Conflating them is the trap. |
| Configuration artefact | A versioned file holding values you change on the client's behalf while there is no administration screen. Not the specification, and not a constant. |
| Invariant | The bound a configured value may never break. Written in the specification, enforced by a publication check. |
| The walls | Identity, authorisation, confidentiality, separation of duties, audit integrity. Configuration changes the path, never these. |
| Panel | Two independent panellists per actor, run as separate processes. A device for thinking, never a source. → |
| The four lenses | Architect, project manager, developer, designer. Every structural decision passes all four. → |
| Lexicon | Business term ↔ English identifier, one translation per term, normative. |
| Refused | Why | Use instead |
|---|
| "Conformity" in a specification | It audits the code, which rots on the next commit and is unreadable outside the repository | Observable |
| A "screens" document | What each role sees is derived from the process and the permissions — writing it down is a third copy | The lifecycle and access documents |
| A shortlist of invented names | It is a skipped lookup, not creativity | One name, with its provenance |
| An identifier derived from initials | It collides, and it needs a legend | A positional WBS code |
| "Blocker" for anything unanswered | It stalls unrelated work and hides the dependency | Delivery gate, with the exact awaited decision or contract |
| "Best practice" with no source | Unfalsifiable | The named standard, with where it comes from |