# OE-0010: Inheritance

**Status:** Draft
**Version:** 0.2.0-draft
**Depends on:** OE-0009 (Stewardship)
**Phase:** The Bedrock Phase

## Overview

Inheritance is the act of receiving and engaging with engineering knowledge from prior work.

## Definition

Inheritance is the receive discipline: the responsibility to actively understand what has been passed down, not merely to possess it. Passive reception — storing documents without engaging with their reasoning — is not inheritance. Inheritance requires the practitioner to reconstruct the understanding behind the inherited context.

## Inheritance Distinguished from the Thread

The thread (OE-0001) is the channel — the model of continuity itself. Inheritance is the act of engaging with what that channel carries. The thread's integrity (OE-0001) is measured by whether inheritance succeeds: can the inheriting practitioner reconstruct the original reasoning? If yes, the thread is intact. If no, the thread has broken at that point.

## Inheritance Distinguished from Stewardship

Inheritance and stewardship (OE-0009) are coupled but distinct. See OE-0009 for the full distinction.

## Inheriting Responsibilities

Practitioners inherit responsibilities as well as resources. Every engineering artifact comes with obligations: a bridge must be maintained, a specification must be kept current, a body of knowledge must be evaluated and extended. The inheriting practitioner assumes these obligations as part of receiving the artifact.

## Single Responsibility

This document defines inheritance. It does not define stewardship (see OE-0009) or the thread (see OE-0001). It references them.

## Applicable Laws

This document is governed by all Engineering Laws defined in `laws/engineering-laws.md`.