DD — Design Decisions Registry#

This is the Design Decisions registry for the balospe.com project — a place to record decisions about style, structure, conventions, and concepts that should not be silently re-litigated each time a contributor or AI agent encounters them.

Each DD doc states the decision, the alternatives that were considered, the arguments on each side, and the date it was settled. New DDs are added here when a coherent decision needs to be locked down so future sessions can honor it without re-deriving the reasoning.

Why a DD registry?#

Without a DD registry, design decisions live only in conversation transcripts and contributor memory. Both decay. The same questions get re-litigated, often with different conclusions each time — silent BABL drift in the conventions of the site itself.

A DD registry is the antidote: write it down once, with the why, so future contributors can either (a) honor it knowingly or (b) deliberately revise it with full awareness of what they are overriding.

Naming convention#

Files follow the lettered-numbering layout specified in AHA/HELL.md (see also DD b11 in the HELL system at source/matheology/hell/system/dd/b/11/). The directory and filename both carry the lettered ID:

<category>/b/<NN>/b<NN>-<short-topic>.rst

For DDs in this registry, <category> is _POST/DD, so the pattern becomes _POST/DD/b/11/b11-<topic>.rst. The integer is assigned in chronological order starting from b11 (b11, b12, b13, …). a1–a9 are reserved for greatest-hits retroactive assignment; b10 is reserved for the format template that tracks the next free number; b11+ are first usable entries.

Both the directory name (b/11/) and the filename prefix (b11-...) carry the lettered ID. This redundancy is deliberate — it keeps the ID visible whether one is browsing the file tree or looking at a filename in isolation. The <short-topic> slug after the b<N>- prefix may be revised for readability without breaking citations (because everyone cites by the b<N> ID, not the slug). Inspired by the lettered-numbering scheme documented at DD b11 for the HEAVEN paper sequence.

Why lettered numbering, not timestamps? Decisions are intended to last across decades. A timestamp encodes “when written”, which says nothing about what supersedes what. The lettered ID is permanent, citable, and stays valid across DD revisions.

On revisions: When a DD’s content is meaningfully revised, append a -rN suffix in the filename body (e.g. b1-trifecta-italics-no-commas-r2.rst) or note the revision inside the file. When a DD is fully superseded, leave it in place with a SUPERSEDED status pointing to the successor DD.

Each DD doc should include:

  • A header VVN encoding who created it.

  • A Decision line stating the conclusion in one sentence.

  • The Alternatives considered with arguments for each.

  • A Rationale explaining why the chosen path was chosen.

  • A Status: ACTIVE / SUPERSEDED (with link to successor) / ABANDONED.

  • A Scope line: where the decision applies (site-wide, specific section, specific paper sequence, etc.).

Currently active DDs#

Reserved range: b13–b25 for the fused-pattern taxonomy#

The DD range from b13 to b25 is reserved for the fused-pattern taxonomy — one DD per arity-class of fused patterns:

  • b13 (ACTIVE): trifectas (3x)

  • b14 (ACTIVE): tetrads (4x)

  • b15–b24 (RESERVED): higher arities (5x through 12x and possibly beyond); arity-to-DD mapping per LLoL’s Excel registry, to be promoted from RESERVED to ACTIVE as needed

  • b25 (ACTIVE): the overview index for the entire b13–b24 range (start here when looking for a fused-pattern DD)

Many of these patterns echo structure from the IronRod core (The Iron Rod), particularly at the 4e through 12e arity classes.

Next free DD slot for non-fused-pattern entries: b26.