Pattern Proposal: Hierarchical Filesystem Knowledge Repository

Summary

Structured directory hierarchy partitioning governance data into global baselines, project-specific overlays, reusable templates, and runtime trace states.

Candidate Pattern

• ID: hierarchical-filesystem-knowledge-repository
• Classification: architectural
• Maturity: strategic_direction
• Type: emerging

Observed Signals

No specific signals listed.

Evidence

Supporting Evidence

• cas-knowledge/global/ - Contains global decisions, rules, patterns, signals, and narratives.
• cas-knowledge/projects/ - Contains project-scoped overlays and governance definitions.
• cas-knowledge/runtime/ - Stores ephemeral evaluation outputs, traces, and execution profiles.
• cas-knowledge/templates/ - Standard template blueprints for ADRs, patterns, and rules.

Scope Assessment

• Evidence Strength: high
• Confidence: high
• Applies to: ideas-to-life-cas

Rationale

• Intent: Provide a human-readable, git-traceable, and decentralized repository for architectural knowledge that can be committed alongside source code.
• Context: Traditional governance systems store decisions in siloed databases, separating decisions from the codebase and preventing developer visibility.
• Force: Databases create external dependencies and diverge from codebase branches.
• Force: Flat markdown folders become unmanageable as project counts grow.

Traceability

Artifact source: proposed-patterns