Context
During triage mining for the semiotic-endeavor spec, the agent used a relevance classifier (local ollama via mine-triage-relevance) to find files relevant to “semiotic specifications, method, governance.” The classifier scored emsenn’s political essays and organizational theory writings as highly relevant because they share vocabulary with the spec (governance, method, organization, structure). The agent then added three sections of philosophical analysis to the spec: platform robustness invariants as “empirical grounding,” constraint-forcing epistemology, and an organization-by-naming failure mode discussion.
emsenn’s correction: this added philosophical bulk that the spec doesn’t need. What specifications need is technical structure — definitions, schemas, interfaces, lifecycle states, validation rules. The classifier was measuring vocabulary overlap, not technical utility.
Decision
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Specifications are enriched with technical content only: definitions, schemas, interfaces, protocols, data structures, concrete mechanisms, lifecycle state machines, validation rules. Philosophical motivation, argumentation, and cross-domain analogy belong in texts, not in specifications.
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The mine-triage-relevance classifier prompt was rewritten to explicitly distinguish technical structure (score 2-3) from philosophical discussion using relevant vocabulary (score 0-1).
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The philosophical additions to semiotic-endeavor v0.3.0 were reverted. The advisory report remains as a text (not lost, just not spec content).
Consequences
- Mining efforts should target triage/engine/, triage/specifications/, and other directories with actual technical content (schemas, type definitions, interface descriptions).
- The relevance script now penalizes affective/philosophical content even when it uses the right vocabulary.
- Future spec enrichment sessions should ask: “does this give me something I can formalize?” not “does this relate to the topic?”
Alternatives considered
- Keep the philosophical sections as a separate “rationale” appendix. Rejected: specs should be self-contained technical documents. The rationale exists in the advisory report texts.
- Adjust the classifier but keep the spec additions. Rejected: the additions genuinely don’t belong in a specification. They’re good writing but wrong location.