CodeAlive-AI First Principles Framework (FPF)
An "Operating System for Thought" — a transdisciplinary architecture for reasoning, written in human- and machine-readable pseudo-code. FPF turns raw intelligence (human or machine) into organisationally usable reasoning: explicit bounded contexts, auditable artefacts, multi-view descriptions, and disciplined hand-offs between specialised actors.
Use cases
Use FPF whenever you need to think more rigorously than the situation's default.
- Decompose a messy, cross-domain problem into parts that can be reasoned about independently
- Make a high-stakes decision with incomplete evidence — and know what evidence is still missing
- Get a mixed team to reason together without vocabulary collisions or hidden assumptions
- Audit whether a conclusion is well-founded or just plausible
- Transform or transfer an insight without losing its subject, precision, or stated limitations
- Structure a proposal that must survive scrutiny from multiple expert perspectives
- Generate alternatives systematically instead of anchoring on the first idea
- Define what "better" means before comparing options
- Classify what kind of problem you're facing before searching for solutions
- Plan how an AI agent should select and sequence its tools under budget and trust constraints
- Make a decision under uncertainty — identify options, weigh evidence, and commit with an auditable rationale
- Establish whether X causes Y — or just correlates — and determine what intervention would work
- Publish a stable multi-view artifact without changing the source semantics
- Assemble or check a public framework publication form while preserving product-specific bodies and references
- Develop a holder system's capability for a named Work family and verify transfer in representative Work
- Synthesize source ontologies for one bounded authoring decision without flattening their local meanings
- Refresh a SoTA pack, benchmark, or evidence trail when evidence decays or telemetry changes
- Synthesize architecture candidates, compare structural options, or repair modularity/reuse claims
- Detect an ontic candidate, decide its first-use disposition, and govern whether a new concept or U-kind should be introduced instead of just renamed
- Identify the exact system that acts or is intended to change, then trace a lost path from outside use to architecture, production, and recursive builders
- Discover other systems that may bear relevant consequences before a decision closes
- Recover a reusable method cautiously from several performances, logs, or observations without treating the evidence as the method itself
- Choose the next action during ongoing work when current facts, authority, and stop conditions matter
- Recover the actual performer/support configuration for Work and test what survives interruption, handoff, delay, or reconfiguration
- Decide whether a proposed mandatory step, check, record, wait, or tool use changes a substantive result or only adds ceremony
- Compare what a finite addition, replacement, or intervention contributes relative to the current configuration
- Clarify what a claim about human, machine, organizational, or cultural “learning” actually says changed
- Clarify what “development” or “evolution” means by naming the changed subject, continuity rule, posture, and value basis
- Probe whether apparent capability loss is really an envelope, support, access, adaptation, enactment, or capability-change issue before choosing redevelopment
- Revalidate affected decisions when a relied-on source changes and the full set of receivers is unknown
- Request or reuse a bounded specialist result while preserving supplier authority and the receiving decision
- Select and combine diagrams, models, records, or other representations for one exact use
- Turn build, buy, reuse, outsource, or AI labels into comparable complete ways to obtain one result
- Check whether advice or an evidence demand helps the recipient’s decision and leads to a feasible next step
- Apply one selected FPF pattern to a current question and stop at the first useful result
How to navigate
The use cases above help decide WHETHER to invoke FPF. The router below decides WHERE to go once invoked.
Step 1 — Match the thinking need to a starting point
| What you need to do | Start here |
|---|---|
| Decompose a complex whole into bounded parts | 05 Part A → A.1 Holons, A.1.1 Bounded Contexts, A.14 Mereology |
| Identify, trace, and discover the acting or changed system, find omitted Systems that may bear consequences, then locate the first unsupported dependency from outside use through recursive builders | 05 Part A → A.1.SCR System Recognition, A.1.CSD Consequence-Bearer Discovery, A.1.STM System-Thinking Long Mantra; 03 FPF Readme → Recover a Lost Path |
| Assign system roles and responsibilities, recover what “role” means, check permission, or distinguish production work from the identity and completion of its product | 05 Part A → A.2 System Role Kinds and Assignments, A.2.8.PER Permission; 11 Part E → E.10.ROLE Role Meaning Recovery; 07 A.V → A.15 Role-Method-Work Alignment, A.15.PROD Production Work |
| Recover a reusable method from several performances or direct evidence without overclaiming Method identity | 05 Part A → A.3.1.MR Candidate-Method Recovery from Work Evidence |
| Recover what project, process, or case language directly refers to before modeling it | 07 A.V → A.15.6 Project, Process, and Case Recovery |
| Steer and recovery-test Work by choosing the next action from current facts or recovering the actual performer/support configuration and probing interruption, handoff, delay, or reconfiguration | 07 A.V → A.15.7 Situation-Responsive Work Steering, A.15.8 Work-Performance Configuration and Recovery Testing |
| Screen mandatory work for operational relevance before requiring a step, check, record, wait, cue, or tool use | 07 A.V → A.11.OP Decision-Relevant Least Action and Operational Parsimony |
| Request or reuse specialist results for one receiving decision while preserving the other practice’s authority | 07 A.V → A.15.9 Bounded Result from Another Practice |
| Select and combine representations for one exact action or decision without treating them as interchangeable | 09 Part C → C.37 Use-Bounded Representation Selection and Co-Use |
| Set boundaries on what statements mean, distinguish relations from their individuated occurrences, or derive a missing relation claim | 06 Signature Stack → A.6.B boundary norms, A.6.REL relation obtaining and occurrences, A.6.RCD relation-claim derivation, declarations, gates, duties, and evidence |
| Prevent category errors or reconcile ontology premises before extending the framework | 07 Constitutional Principles → A.7 Strict Distinction, A.7.1 Consequence-Guided Ontological Problem Solving, A.7.2 Premise Reconciliation, A.7.CP Constructive Premise Compact |
| Evaluate confidence in a claim or artifact — including formality, scope, and reliability of the underlying knowledge | 08 Part B → B.3 Trust & Assurance; 09 Part C → C.2 KD-CAL / F-G-R scoring, C.2.2 Reliability, C.2.3 Formality |
| Compose parts into wholes preserving properties | 08 Part B → B.1 Gamma algebra; 09 Part C → C.13 Compose-CAL, C.20 Discipline-CAL |
| Reason through a problem systematically | 08 Part B → B.5 Reasoning Cycle, B.5.2 Abductive Loop |
| Enter and apply FPF: choose a practical entry, find results across a DPF suite, or apply one pattern to a first useful result | 03 FPF Readme → Practical Entries; 11 Part E → E.11.DSG DPF Suite Reference, E.11.PUA Pattern Use |
| Generate alternatives / construct comparable ways to obtain one result, explore solution space, and keep apparatus use bounded | 09 Part C → C.38 Comparable Ways to Obtain One Result; C.17 Creativity-CHR, C.18 Open-Ended Search, C.19 Explore-Exploit, C.19.2 Use-Bounded Apparatus Application |
| Measure and compare options rigorously | 07 A.V → A.17-A.19 Characteristics, CSLC & SelectorMechanism; 09 Part C → C.16 MM-CHR; 13 Part G → G.9 Parity / Benchmark Harness |
| Resolve conflicts across stakeholders or values | 10 Part D → Ethics, bias audit, conflict optimization |
| Unify vocabulary or synthesize source ontologies across teams or domains without flattening source-local claims | 12 Part F → F.0.2 Conceptual Synthesis, concept sets, bridges, UTS, lexical continuity |
| Transform, document, publish, and reuse epistemes, views, or frameworks while preserving subjects and product-specific bodies | 06 A.IV.A → A.6.2-A.6.4 episteme morphing/viewing/retargeting (separate exact arrow, bounded-use assertion, and current-case judgment), A.6.3.NAR narrative rendering; 11 Part E → E.4.PFIP Publication Integration, E.11.PFP Publication Form Profile, E.17 Multi-View Publication Kit |
| Sharpen expression — repair vague wording, recover exact method/work relations, clarify what “learning,” “development,” or “evolution” means in the current claim, surface ambiguity, or restore precision of epistemic / measurement / architecture terms | 06 A.IV.A → A.6.P.WMR Exact Relation Recovery, A.6.H Wholeness Unpacking; 11 Part E → E.10.LRN, E.10.DEV, E.10.ARCH, E.17.EFP; 09 Part C → C.2.P, C.16.P, C.30.P |
| Decide, appraise advice, or compare contributions under uncertainty — compare a finite configuration change to the current configuration, structure options, weigh evidence, and commit with auditable rationale | 09 Part C → C.11.CRC Configuration-Relative Contribution Comparison, C.11 Decsn-CAL, C.11.DUA Decision-Useful Advice and Evidence Demands |
| Reason about time and change — distinguish state readings, trends, currentness, and intervention-sensitive change, or recover an actual temporal structure before testing coordination | 09 Part C → C.27 Temporal Claim Adequacy, C.27.TA Temporal Aspect; 03 FPF Readme → ACTUAL-TEMPORAL-STRUCTURE |
| Establish causality — climb the causality ladder, identify causal structure, check realizability | 09 Part C → C.28 CausalUse-CAL |
| Check mathematical or modeling fit — assess whether a formal lens / math model is adequate for the problem | 09 Part C → C.29 Mathematical Lens Use |
| Describe architecture or structural views — characterize structure, unfold constraint-governed structure, produce adequate architectural descriptions and view types, triage cross-scope architectural residuals | 07 A.V → A.22 STRUCT-CAL, A.22.CGUS; 09 Part C → C.30, C.30.AD, C.30.ASV, C.30.LCA, C.30.ILC, C.30.TFS-REL |
| Connect transformation flows without collapsing independent structures into one flow or project | 11 Part E → E.18.NET Network of Transformation-Flow Structures |
| Synthesize architecture candidates or reconcile several non-isomorphic structures of one practice, then assess modularity/reuse or publish ADR-style projections | 09 Part C → C.31 Modularity, C.32 Architecture Candidate Synthesis, C.32.MWA Practice Architecture, C.32.PAD, C.32.ADR, C.32.ADA |
| Assess structural information — check architecture capture, source return, equivalence, morphisms, or discovery adequacy | 09 Part C → C.33, C.34, C.35 |
| Model context-dependent or indeterminate states — represent superposed, probe-coupled, or viability-bounded behaviour | 09 Part C → C.26 Quantum-Like Modeling Lens, C.26.1 Probe-Coupled Boundary, C.26.2 Enacted Distributed State, C.26.3 Viability-Envelope |
| Survey a discipline and build, ship, or refresh a reusable toolkit | 13 Part G → G.1-G.13 SoTA kit, CG-Frame, dispatcher, benchmarks, shipping, telemetry refresh, dashboards, external interop; 09 Part C → C.21 Discipline-CHR |
| Classify a problem type, test whether a candidate is admissible for a kind judgment, or compare kind identity before claiming a cross-local correspondence | 09 Part C → C.22 Problem-CHR, C.22.PFR Problematic-For Relation, C.3 Kind-CAL, C.3.2 Kind Judgment, C.3.3 KindBridge |
| Define quality attributes ("-ilities") as structured bundles | 09 Part C → C.25 Q-Bundle; 07 A.V → A.17-A.19 Characteristics |
| Govern ontology — detect an ontic candidate, decide its first-use disposition, and determine whether a new concept or U-kind is warranted | 11 Part E → E.24 Ontic Introduction Discipline, E.24.CD Ontic Candidate Detection and First-Use Disposition, E.24.UK U-kind Admission and Ontic Settlement |
| Probe or develop capability — distinguish apparent capability loss from envelope, support, access, adaptation, or enactment failures; when development is separately selected, test whether improvement transfers beyond an exercise | 11 Part E → E.23.CAE Capability Access and Expression Differential Probe, E.23.CDI Developing Capability for a Named Work Family |
| Reason about cultural evolution — describe cultural-evolution engineering or repair cultural-evolution wording | 09 Part C → C.36 Cultural Evolution, C.36.P Precision Restoration |
| Orchestrate agentic tool use under budgets and trust gates | 09 Part C → C.24 Agent-Tools-CAL |
| Trace provenance and revalidate affected uses when a relied-on source changes, or detect refresh debt | 07 A.V → A.10 Evidence Graph, A.10.1 Revalidate Affected Uses; 13 Part G → G.6 Provenance Ledger, G.11 Telemetry-Driven Refresh & Decay |
For complex problems, follow paths across multiple sections — the router shows where to start, not where to stop.
Step 2 — Read the _index.md, then the sub-section
- Open the
_index.mdof the target section folder — it lists all sub-sections with line counts and descriptions. - Read only the specific sub-section file you need.
- Do NOT load entire sections. Pick the narrowest file that serves the user's question.
Step 3 — Apply in plain language
Use plain language for the user. Introduce FPF-internal names (U.Holon, Gamma, F-G-R) only when they add precision the user needs.
Step 4 — Compose findings across sections
When a problem draws from multiple sections:
- State each pattern's contribution in one line (e.g., "Bounded Contexts gives us the parts; Trust Calculus scores our confidence in each").
- If patterns from different sections appear to conflict, check for category errors via A.7 Strict Distinction — the conflict is usually a level confusion (role vs. function, method vs. work), not a real contradiction.
- Synthesize in natural order: decomposition first (what are the parts?), then evaluation (how confident are we?), then resolution (what do we do about gaps?).
- Do not just list FPF patterns — weave them into a coherent answer to the user's actual question.
Starter prompt (example — adapt to the user's actual role and need)
You have the FPF specification loaded. Help me structure my project / problem / programme. Use plain language for an engineer-manager. Propose: (1) bounded contexts / specialisations, (2) decision criteria, (3) key alternatives, (4) hand-offs, and (5) missing evidence or tests before commitment. Introduce internal FPF names only when they add precision.
Section INDEX
Structural reference. Each entry is a folder — read its _index.md first, then pick the sub-section.
| # | Section | Sub | When to use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Title page | 0 | Identify: title, authorship, version date, top-level identity. |
| 02 | Table of Contents | 0 | Navigate: locate a pattern, keyword, query cue, dependency, or neighboring section. |
| 03 | FPF Readme | 10 | Enter, onboard, and recover: choose a practical entry, understand what each part contributes, connect transformation flows, recover a lost path from outside use to recursive builders, or locate licensing and reuse terms. |
| 04 | Preface | 21 | Orient: read philosophy, Architectural Rationale, shared source synthesis, profile choices, whole-combination conditions, uncertainty posture, and purpose/non-goals. |
| 05 | Part A — Kernel | 26 | Decompose, identify, discover, trace, assign, recover, and authorize: holons, bounded contexts, acting/changed-system recognition, consequence-bearing System discovery, outside-use dependency tracing, roles, permissions, candidate-Method recovery from Work evidence, transformers, method/work separation. |
| 06 | A.IV.A — Signatures | 27 | Set boundaries, derive relations, transform epistemes, and render: distinguish relations from occurrences; recover exact method/work and under-specified service/access relations; derive needed relation claims; keep source, receiving episteme, arrow, use claim, work, and publication distinct; classify statements or render structure faithfully. |
| 07 | A.V — Principles | 47 | Prevent confusion, remove ceremony, recover direct subjects, and steer or recovery-test Work: category errors, ontology premises, decision-relevant operational parsimony, project/process/case language, situation-responsive next-action choice, performer/support configuration and recovery probes, production-work identity, completion criteria and separate closure authority, measuring, comparing, evidence graphs and changed-source revalidation, bounded specialist results, mechanism suites, transformation-step constraint validity, independent-check gate decisions, constraint-governed unfolding. |
| 08 | Part B — Reasoning | 25 | Compose and evaluate: structural views (STRUCT-CAL), aggregation (Gamma), trust scores, emergence, reasoning cycles. |
| 09 | Part C — Extensions | 80 | Score, compare, search, and architect: epistemic quality, typed reasoning, measurement, configuration-relative contribution comparisons, comparable result routes, representation selection and co-use, decision-useful advice and evidence demands, decisions, bounded apparatus use, temporal/causal/math lenses, architecture synthesis across non-isomorphic practice structures, structural adequacy, cultural evolution. |
| 10 | Part D — Ethics | 5 | Resolve conflicts: ethical trade-offs, bias auditing, safety overrides, conflict optimization. |
| 11 | Part E — Constitution and Authoring | 66 | Enter, apply, clarify, probe, develop, govern, reuse, and publish: practical entry and pattern use, DPF-suite navigation, learning/development/evolution claim recovery, framework publication forms and preservation, capability access/expression probing and development for named Work, edition continuity, multi-view publication, transformation-flow networks, pattern quality, ontic/U-kind governance. |
| 12 | Part F — Unification | 22 | Synthesize and align: bounded conceptual synthesis across source ontologies, concept sets, sense cells, bridges with separate bounded-use claims and reliance basis, system-role descriptions, UTS, lexical continuity. |
| 13 | Part G — SoTA Kit | 15 | Harvest and refresh disciplines: SoTA Packs, CG-Frames, dispatchers, provenance ledgers, benchmark harnesses, shipping, telemetry refresh, dashboards, external interop. |
| 14 | Part H — Reserved | 0 | Reserve: preserve the upstream Part H position for future specification content. |
| 15 | Part I — Annexes | 1 | Walk through: expanded entry disambiguation cases for high-risk or repeatedly misclassified first-pattern choices. |