varietyz/disciplined-ai-software-development/reasoning-templates

reasoning-templates

The templates in .{provider}/templates/ are executable protocols for reasoning, not reference docs. Producing a structured construct means walking the template's ten-node loop as stated.

The full rule is .{provider}/rules/template.rule.md.

Which template

The dispatch key is each template's LAYER 0 genesis question.

Plan mode: three steps, never one

1. Draft the plan from the task.
2. Read `checklist` and compare the draft to it, node by node and gate by gate.
3. Restructure the plan to what the template enforces.

Step 3 is never skipped on the grounds that the draft already covers it. The draft is raw material, and the template is the authority.

What the restructure adds

An ordinary plan lacks all of these:

• Worth before work: the branch is argmax(utility − cost) over admissible branches, with the ranking shown,

rather than the first workable idea.

• Topology ordering: dependency-topological then genesis. Severity routes failure and never groups or orders

phases.

• Genesis consistency: no phase depends on a later-genesis output than it produces. Such an inversion is a

decomposition defect, not a tie to break.

• Four dependency axes per phase: sequential, lateral, diagonal and propagation.
• Ripple chains: affected entities carried as names, never counts. An empty dimension carries its

applicability evidence rather than being omitted.

• Evidence contracts: every material claim carries evidence, a named refuter, and confidence at or above

threshold. "No contradiction found" is not support.

• Gate separation: generation-time gates resolve during planning, and future execution gates ship

unchecked.

• Explicit termination: saturation and completion and verification. A self-assessed "done" does not

terminate.

The four gates always run

tel-priority · constrain · ver-stop · ter-stop. The epistemic axes are selectable, and these four are not. A gate naming no evidence is ceremony and fails.

Execution discipline

Follow as stated. Node order, contracts, typed decisions and invariants are not condensed or partially applied.

The mechanism transfers, and catalogs re-derive. The loop, typing and gates are domain-neutral. Where a template's catalog assumes a construct this tree does not carry, such as a class hierarchy, a migration surface, a build step or a registry, that catalog is re-derived against the constructs that are here, and where the slot naming one resolves ABSENT, its branch does not run. Substituting the mechanism is the violation, and re-deriving a catalog is the work. An example catalog is the half a token sweep cannot see, so it is found by reading the protocol whole rather than by searching it.

Executed only. A descriptive artifact (reference, spec, contract, note) is not full-shaped, and forcing the loop onto it is the Procrustean failure.

Never consolidate the templates. Each inlines the full structure so it stays independently executable, which is the deliberate exception to the duplication rule.