Use when a proposed change would touch the project's THEORETICAL CORE rather than the protective belt around it. Distinguishes progressive moves (positive heuristic — add predictive content) from degenerating moves (ad-hoc rescue — preserve the core by carving exceptions). Maintains a living manifesto of the hard core (3–6 commitments the project refuses to sacrifice), the protective belt (auxiliary hypotheses that may be modified), and the monster-barring red-flag log (every time a result was excused by redefining the eval set). Triggers; any proposal that would shift router design, expert architecture, or the structural-routing narrative; "should we change X?", "I want …
