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OE-0011: Evolution
Status: Draft Version: 0.2.0-draft Depends on: OE-0010 (Inheritance) Phase: The Bedrock Phase
Overview
Evolution is the disciplined, verified extension of the standard's body of knowledge.
Definition
Evolution is not arbitrary change. It is the extension of the standard through the defined change workflow. Every change must survive the editorial gate defined in reference/editorial-principles.md. Every change must be consistent with the dependency tree.
The Dependency Tree
The specification documents form a strict dependency chain:
Charter (OE-0000) -> Foundation (OE-0001) -> Core Vocabulary (OE-0002) -> Engineering Context (OE-0003) -> Observation (OE-0004) -> Survey (OE-0005) -> Understanding (OE-0006) -> Verification (OE-0007) -> Decision (OE-0008) -> Stewardship (OE-0009) -> Inheritance (OE-0010) -> Evolution (OE-0011)
Nothing later in the chain may redefine an earlier layer. Only extend it.
The Change Workflow
The canonical workflow for all changes:
Observe -> Draft -> Review -> Accept -> Freeze (RC) -> Reference
Once a document reaches RC status, it is not rewritten unless a subsequent RFC explicitly supedes it. The status lifecycle governing these transitions is defined in OE-0000 (Charter).
Constitutional Governance Gap
This document defines the change workflow for the standard's technical content. It does not define the process for modifying the standard's own governance — its laws, editorial principles, or status criteria. A future specification or amendment must address this constitutional layer. Until then, changes to governance follow the same workflow as changes to technical content, with the acknowledgment that this is an interim arrangement.
Spiral Re-evaluation as Evolution
Evolution is not linear. It is spiral. The standard will return to earlier concepts with deeper understanding, refining and extending them without contradicting the bedrock they rest on. Each spiral pass either eliminates ambiguity or strengthens traceability.
The Bedrock Phase
The current phase of the Open Engineer standard is The Bedrock Phase. Every sentence accepted during this phase is intended to support everything built above it. If this phase is executed carefully, downstream implementations — presentation layers, interchange formats, context record tooling — will not require new concepts. They will express what already exists in the specification.
The specification leads. Everything else follows.
Applicable Laws
This document is governed by all Engineering Laws defined in laws/engineering-laws.md.