Forms catalog

spike

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spike

Description

A time-boxed investigative task whose purpose is to reduce uncertainty before committing to a build. The output is understanding (cost estimate, feasibility verdict, structural sketch), not shipped product; the cost is bounded by the box, not by the scope of what’s being investigated.

Distinguishes from “research” (open-ended, no fixed scope-or-time) and from “prototype” (intended-to-become-real after iteration). The spike’s defining move is the commit/no-commit decision at the end of the box: after the timebox expires, the project either commits to a full build informed by the spike’s findings, or kills the direction. The code produced during the spike is throw-away; the understanding is retained.

Composes with cost-cascade (cheap investigation before expensive commitment; the spike IS the cheap stage gating the expensive stage), grain (the spike’s grain — depth of investigation — is itself a choice with cost implications), load-bearing (the spike should target the load-bearing uncertainty, not the salient-but-incidental one).

Tentative composition

The bundle is currently identified via 3 primitives: cost-cascade + grain + load-bearing. These are the firm composition edges. Adjacent compositions that may emerge as encounters accumulate:

Provenance

Source channel: conversational coining via the catalog-growth flow (docs/catalog-growth.md’s deferred-candidate process). James-noted recurring pattern 2026-05-18.

Encounters (observed instances of the pattern)

  • The Quartz spike (2026-05-18 brainstorm session on Obsidian-as-UI direction) — ~30-min investigation: clone Quartz starter, point at forms/, evaluate Stage B asset bar. Output is a verdict, not a shipped Quartz site.
  • KCC exploratory PRs that established feasibility before commitment to a multi-week build — multiple instances; the structural shape is “small spike PR → verdict → either commit to full build or kill direction.”
  • Engine architecture spikes during analogy-project design (MAC/FAC retrieval approach, Path D representational substrate) — explored the design space cheaply before committing the engine to one approach.

Promotion criteria (still pending)

Promote to a full Form when:

  • More cross-domain encounters accumulate (currently mostly software/agent-engineering; would benefit from instances in non-software domains — research-design spikes, product-discovery spikes, architectural spikes)
  • A sharper ## When it doesn't apply section distinguishes spike from:
    • Plain “exploration” (which has no commit/no-commit decision attached)
    • Research (open-ended; no fixed timebox)
    • Prototype (intended to become real after iteration; spike’s output is throw-away code + retained understanding)
    • POC (“proof of concept” — often used synonymously, but POC tends to be heavier and may produce shippable output; spike is leaner and explicitly throw-away)

Once these surface from accumulated encounters, spike clears for promotion to a full Form with the §11.10 schema.

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