Every significant decision gets a record. Not a Slack message, not a meeting note — a versioned, reviewable, searchable artifact in the repo where the code lives.
Every assumption has a half-life. Treat "we believe X" the same way you treat a cache TTL: it's valid until it isn't, and you need a mechanism to detect when it goes stale.
Mission, architecture, and public commitments are canon. Changing canon is a deliberate, versioned act with a changelog entry and a steward's approval. Canon doesn't drift silently.
Systems drift. Assumptions go stale, decisions become outdated, reality diverges from intent. The failure isn't drifting — it's not detecting it. CoherenceOps makes drift visible and patchable.
The ultimate test: can a new team member find out why something was built this way in under 60 seconds? If yes, your coherence infrastructure is working. If no, decisions are trapped in heads.
"We have a culture of documentation" is not a system. Infrastructure means: templates that prompt, gates that block, scores that measure, and loops that correct. Culture helps; infrastructure guarantees.
CoherenceOps adds process only where it prevents loss. Normal PRs get zero overhead. Major decisions get a DLR. Expired assumptions get a drift signal. That's it.
Do not treat software coding performance as a universal proxy for real-world automation. Code is a high-structure domain with deterministic rules and immediate validation loops. Most organizational decisions are low-structure domains with ambiguity, competing incentives, and human context.
CoherenceOps assumes this boundary by design:
- AI can draft, summarize, and accelerate artifacts.
- Humans remain accountable for trade-offs, risk acceptance, and final decisions.
- Governance exists to make these decisions explicit, reviewable, and durable.