Patterns
8 patterns that solve recurring challenges in aDNA projects. Each describes the problem, the solution, and where to find a working example in this vault.
What a pattern is here
A pattern is a shape that recurs, named so it can be discussed and reused. It sits between a concept — which explains what something is — and a procedure, which tells you what to do. A pattern tells you what tends to work, and when it does not.
Patterns here are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Each one was extracted from something this vault or a peer vault actually built, which is why every pattern carries a worked example: if we could not point at an instance, it was an idea and not yet a pattern.
How to read one
Every pattern follows the same four moves: the problem it recurs in response to, the solution shape, a worked example in a real vault, and the trade-off — what you give up by adopting it. Read the trade-off first if you are choosing between two patterns; it is usually the part that decides.
The patterns
The Question Test
Every new file in an aDNA project needs to land in one of three folders — what/, how/, or who/. Most files are obvious; edge cases cause hesitation…
AGENTS.md Routing
A project folder can hold hundreds of files. An AI agent working on a single task needs only a handful of them — but how does it know which folders to…
Dual-Audience Writing
aDNA documentation must serve two audiences with different needs: developers seeking technical precision for implementation, and newcomers seeking…
Base/Extension
A shared standard has to be stable enough that teams can build on it, but flexible enough to handle work the authors never imagined. If every team…
Context Recipe
Most real tasks need knowledge from several areas at once — not one clean topic. Without a pre-built list of what to load, an agent either grabs…
FAIR Envelope
A shareable object without a label is a black box — nobody outside your project can find it, tell if it's trustworthy, know who made it, or use it…
Mission Decomposition
Some jobs — writing thirteen concept files, or building a whole documentation site — are too big for any one agent session to finish in one go…
Federation Readiness
Something that works in your project isn't automatically safe to hand to someone else. A workflow may rely on files only you have, skip the labels a…
Proposing a pattern
Patterns are added through the same public proposal process as any other change to the standard — see proposals. The bar is the one above: a pattern needs an instance somewhere before it can be named here. A shape observed once is a coincidence; the proposal is where you argue it is not.