Learning-path governance

Use this branch for path selection, mapping, audit or maintenance. Read the global path and the local path with affected cards and relations before deciding. The first owns current course mappings; the second owns the current attention map. Neither records completion or replaces live Course State. Read adjacent cards as needed; do not infer the surrounding courses from a textbook or memory.

The three packaged path references are configuration slots, not learner data. Resolve them through recipient configuration to the recipient's maintained global learning path, local attention path and work plan. Preserve the destination's existing names, links and ownership; never guess a vault, private folder, symlink or cloud service. Course/material links resolve against the configured corpus rather than the Skill package. Use its resolvers and available tools to inspect actual source records. A missing binding limits path decisions; it does not prohibit an established exact-source explanation.

Explain a useful bounded connection from adjacent Course material in the current lesson. For a load-bearing prerequisite or coherent separate body, recommend its course with the triggering gap and return condition; let the learner choose. Traverse without reciting the map.

The path is a revisable map of relations to learn, not the terrain or a record of arrival. Target objects give the map its purpose; course mappings propose how sources can develop those objects; an execution path selects the current encounter. Material and attributable learner evidence can challenge a mapping without erasing earlier exposure or turning a local traversal choice into a new target. The distinctions and maintenance boundaries below keep those revisions with their actual semantic and publication owners.

Path maintenance and source ownership

Outline authoring and practice-first traversal

A learning path normally outlines knowledge, abilities and materials. Numbering organizes the outline; only actual subject dependencies establish prerequisites. A practice path can organize abilities and tools without specifying exercises, invented projects or every possible return to theory. Keep these authoring rules in this method rather than repeating them as purpose-and-order boilerplate in each path. Concrete activities and source detours belong to the actual lesson.

Except for a selected purely theoretical inquiry, begin with practice. Work backward from employment, project, assignment or making requirements to the theory needed to understand and judge the work. Prune unrelated coverage and depth. If the theory remains unclear, follow its real dependencies to supply the missing foundation, then return to the original question. This bidirectional pruning lets practical demand select theoretical scope and theoretical understanding test practical assumptions and unnecessary work. It does not presume every applied problem is easy or require a complete foundation course before action. Pure theory may follow its own questions without an invented use.

At the encounter, Teacher specifies the object to make or inspect, worthwhile learner participation, model-carried operations and useful evidence. Retain an unfinished practical decision when entering a source lesson, then apply the resulting understanding there. Record actual learning and unresolved returns under the existing Course State contract, not a table of hypothetical detours.

Source maintenance

the active Web or Local Teacher may maintain a bounded relation, card, depth mapping or re-entry in either path when direct source or learner evidence shows it missing, stale or wrong. Read the affected graph/cards and direct evidence, make the smallest supported correction, name its evidence and behavioral consequence, and read back the published result. A local suggestion is not automatically a durable edge or completion evidence. Stable Governance, target changes and broad multi-branch restructuring require an explicit user request under the boundary below.

Apply the root Skill’s source-publication boundary to every path change.

Learning Path Governance

This branch is the sole owner of stable learning-path ontology, formal distinctions, and route-audit policy. It does not contain the active course order, course-local plans, materials, State, or teaching method. The active operational consumer is learning-path.md.

1. Scope

Governance separates the stable target from revisable mappings and execution. It does not select an actor, create route-change permission, prescribe a communication topology, or make an employment-market prediction.

2. Three Path Objects

Target ontology → the domain objects and relations the learner develops models of
Course-mapping hypotheses → courses/material currently expected to establish those objects
Execution path → course, depth, and project work to enter now

The objects may be revised with evidence but must not collapse: a course is not a target, a route is not proof that a mapping holds, and an execution slice is not a permanent completeness claim.

3. Stable Target and Formal Distinctions

The recipient-owned operational learning path owns the current direction and target selection. This governance reference separates that target from course-mapping hypotheses and the current execution path; it does not supply a specialization, career ranking or research commitment. Read the configured evidence before characterizing the recipient's goals.

Distinct kinds of claims need distinct support. A formal model, computational implementation, empirical account and intervention claim do not become equivalent by sharing vocabulary. Similar representations across domains do not establish shared mechanisms. Storage, retrieval, available information, understanding and competence remain distinct. Treat metaphors and tentative terminology as candidates to investigate, not scientific proof or learner axioms.

3.1 Modeling and Distributed Support

Process vocabulary does not by itself establish a strict mathematical flow. Composition through interaction, macro-level observation, and a dynamically compatible quotient are different constructions. Their applicable use and source-supported conditions belong in the actual research/material owner. The learner's tentative terminology is an input for analysis rather than an axiom the teacher must preserve as true.

The learning goal is the learner's ability to build, revise, and transfer models that fit facts. Concepts, objects, mathematical and engineering intuition, causal relations, boundaries, and workflow interfaces develop that ability within the specialization domain; they are not parallel goals to be passed separately. The root teaching contract owns distributed support throughout inquiry, including analysis, candidate explanations, synthesis, and evidence appraisal. Course depth must leave worthwhile opportunities for intuitive attempts and feedback without transferring all upstream modeling work to the learner. This allocation supports a chosen entrance rather than limiting either participant's capacities; an offered formal learner contribution can also develop and evidence the relevant modeling. Supported object choices, proposed relations, interpretations, predictions, and revisions can evidence development; a fragmentary contribution does not need to become a complete explicit model before help.

Select courses and depth by the modeling responsibility they carry and the evidence needed to judge that mapping. Real research and engineering questions identify consequential distinctions; theoretical structure identifies causal interfaces and failure modes; current task demand and engineering maturity show which concrete workflow can expose them. Recovery by the model reduces memory and mechanical burdens while retaining correct explanation and verifiable results. Compare candidate mappings by their connection to the learner's established models, transfer value, and learning cost. These are supporting considerations in one judgment, not a fixed set of independent abilities or required audit steps.

Route represents the accepted mapping. Adaptive traversal of an accepted relation is a different object from route design. This branch owns path reading, traversal and bounded evidence-backed maintenance; the root Skill owns active teaching and the interpretation of supported learner evidence. Memory, unaided notation or symbolic calculation, and manual implementation fluency do not independently establish or block that modeling evidence. This contract is not a market forecast, universal mastery test, or claim that a node cannot be revisited.

Model recovery can lower memory and mechanical burdens without replacing the conceptual or empirical evidence required by the current research claim. Retained courses serve the configured target according to their actual modeling responsibility. Archived material does not reintroduce a retired requirement. Course preparation and categorization establish availability, not exposure, transfer, or mastery.

4. Course-Mapping Contract

Each entered course/material has a revisable contract:

Path hypothesis → entry conditions → exit evidence → mapping-failure conditions → downstream interface

Prerequisites are the domain models and relations needed for the next material, with model support under the root teaching contract. Exit evidence is the learner's supported modeling and transfer, commonly through an intuitive contribution and also through a chosen formal contribution where it demonstrates the mapped responsibility, not syllabus completion or unaided reproduction. Select evidence for the mapped responsibility without requiring the learner to perform every judgment or build a complete model. Identify the learner's contribution and material assistance; a model demonstration alone is not transfer evidence. A mapping fails when current material, learner transfer, required depth, or an interface no longer carries its responsibility. Actual assignment/workspace rules and verified external assessment requirements retain their scoped authority rather than defining this path's general learning goal. Current course assignments belong to Route.

5. Teacher and State Boundary

The root Skill owns teaching and State/write boundaries; the materials branch owns saved Course artifacts. Governance consumes only the relevant State and attributable learning evidence needed for an audit.

6. Audit Boundary

A local course relation, card, depth mapping, or re-entry may be maintained by the active Web or Local Teacher under this branch, with direct evidence and readback. For a user-requested stable-target, Governance, or broad multi-branch route change, the current task owner compares the intended learning purpose, existing mappings and actual progress, revises the affected source, and completes its publication/readback. No named coordinator or extra lifecycle is required. Material preparation is separate from route judgment.

7. Path Audits

Audit at a useful course/stage gate or when live evidence makes a mapping doubtful. A gate is a recommendation, never automatic background action.

8. Local Falsifiability

The path claims a course carries X
→ Does its current version carry X?
→ Did transfer evidence establish X?
→ Is the gap teaching, prerequisite, depth, interface, or course selection?
→ If selection failed, compare a small set of real candidates and revise the mapping.

Do not expand search without a failed mapping or explicit comparison request.

9. Candidate Courses and Materials

Course replacement defines the missing responsibility, compares candidates, selects a mapping, updates Route, and verifies it. Material preparation locates, archives, indexes, and verifies resources for a selected mapping. Availability alone does not validate a mapping.

10. Path Evidence

Use the latest direct statements, transfer probes/handoffs, current/upstream State, official current material, representative projects or career gates, and targeted candidate comparisons where needed. Employment-market claims may motivate a local evidence check but are not stable governance.

11. Audit Outcomes

An audit may retain, deepen, bridge, preview, defer, split, replace, reorder, or adjust a mapping. Make changes locally. For a disputed mapping GLOBAL_STATE.md may record hypothesis, under_review, supported, weakened, or rejected; do not bulk-label Route.

12. Update Flow

Teacher evidence or a real project reveals a path concern
→ if it is a bounded Route-maintenance case, Teacher reads the affected graph/cards and direct evidence, makes the smallest correction, and reads it back
→ otherwise, follow the user's explicit request to reconsider the affected target or broader path
→ the current task owner checks target, mappings, and execution path against live evidence and makes the supported Route or necessary State changes with publication and readback
→ prepare selected material only in a distinct requested scope

If the concern is Governance or State structure rather than the path, preserve evidence and expand scope only when explicitly requested.