Standing constraints on what we must always or never do.
[[Auditable Intermediaries Over Silent Proxies]]⊙ — Intermediaries must leave auditable traces rather than forwarding silently
[[Authority Flows from the Person]] — Identity is delegable, not alienable — authority originates with the person
[[Content Over Container]] — The knowledge vault needs searchable content, not file formats — renditions replace binaries when canonical sources exist
[[Human Authority Over Augmentation Systems]] — The vault augments human capability — the human retains authority at every level
[[Living Documents Over Static Publications]] — Garden nodes grow and evolve through tending — the current state matters, not the published version
[[Progressive Disclosure Over Eager Loading]] — Start with the question, follow edges on demand, stop when context suffices
[[Zero-Tooling Floor for Knowledge Architecture]] — Plain markdown, git, and shell one-liners — specialized tools add value but are never prerequisites
[[Systems Should Listen More Than They Speak]] — Well-designed subsystems compress information at every stage; measure attention saved, not data delivered
8 nodes in this section.