The following are an evolving and inexhaustive set of principles upon which this [[System]] is based. They exist to help guide and ground my efforts as I play around with this space. They are *applied* principles and definitely *not* some kind of epistemological charter. ## Explicit metadata over implicit intent Any valuable descriptor about a page should be tracked on the page itself (ideally as one of its [[Property|Properties]]). Avoid situations where the page is reliant on e.g. its folder or backlinks from another page to define its inherent properties. A dip-check is: Does the page lose some of its core meaning if mailed to someone as plain text? If so, then we are relying on implicit structures to hold that knowledge, which are typically fragile and more complex. ## Non-contradictory semantics Every fact should be defined exactly once. Avoid situations where the same semantic can be equally or ambiguously defined two or more times. If a page has a `parent` property, then those parents should *not* have a `child` property. Failing to do so compromises our master data management, leading to data quality problems, and creates an ambiguous situation for where and how facts should be consumed. ## Simplicity over complicatedness Though eventual [complexity](https://thecynefin.co/about-us/about-cynefin-framework/) is fine and expected. Lean on [[Occam's Razor]] to reduce any intent to the smallest and most robust building blocks required. ## Transactional in transactional Prefer to hold against intransient concepts only those intransient details, and use transactional logs and daily notes to hold transient and incidental details that are explicitly semantically linked to their intransient anchor within the list item itself.