Handoff

Objective

Execute FE-MISSION-001 to determine whether Framework Engineering has a defensible non-redundant boundary and prepare the operating system and research outputs for later engineering use.

Work completed

• Read governing ROS and FE records and established passing baselines.
• Registered a ROS mission and research journal.
• Created a provider-isolated, preregistered FE execution.
• Reviewed 30 primary, official, or clearly labeled supporting sources.
• Compared ten adjacent fields over 12 frozen dimensions.
• Performed strongest-case and individual/collective subsumption tests.
• Produced current-state, normative, and operational definitions.
• Updated FEH-001 confidence.
• Designed research-to-engineering architecture and maturity gates.
• Audited ROS–FE Profile v1.0 without changing its accepted baseline.
• Specified a matched four-arm incremental-utility experiment.
• Created machine-readable evidence and decision state.

Decision and assumptions

Current classification:

• repository-centered research program;
• candidate integrated engineering profile;
• not an established distinct engineering discipline.

Authority note: this is the successor package's proposed classification. EX-FE-0002 remains experimentally inconclusive with Stage A incomplete and Stage B blocked. EX-FE-0003 remains unexecuted.

Assumptions:

• “framework” means the bounded analytical artifact defined in candidate-definitions.md, not every architecture or organizational structure;
• official standards abstracts support only their stated scope;
• integration may be useful but must not be treated as a causal finding;
• profile v1.0 remains accepted for pilot until a successor decision.

Required reading order

1. README.md
2. RP-FE-BOUNDARY-2026-07-28.md
3. comparison-matrix.md
4. candidate-definitions.md
5. next-experiment.md
6. ros-fe-profile-v1-audit.md
7. architecture-and-operating-model.md

Use evidence-model.json for machine ingestion and source-registry.md for source limitations.

Tests and validation

• New package and execution JSON: parsed successfully with jq; a separate execution-draft check validated inherited/type-specific required fields, profile identity, and unique IDs for all 11 draft records.
• npm run ros-fe:registry: passed; execution registry rebuilt.
• npm run ros-fe:validate: passed.
• npm run ros-fe:test: 2/2 passed.
• npm run experiments:test: 7/7 passed.
• npm run experiments:verify: all ten registered experiments verified.
• npm run research:validate: passed.
• npm run research:build: passed; 1,267 pages built and 1,200 indexed in the final current-worktree build.
• ROS ./ros registry build: six affected registries rebuilt.
• ROS ./ros validate: passed.
• ROS ./ros registry check: current.

These results establish repository and publishing conformance in the tested scope. They do not establish FE efficacy.

Unresolved questions

• Will an independent method engineer and systems engineer accept the steelman comparator descriptions?
• What minimum important effect and maximum lifecycle-cost burden should the matched experiment use?
• Which domains provide representative but safe benchmark tasks?
• Who is the named decision authority for profile continuation or renaming?
• Should v1.1 implementation begin before the utility study, or should only the P0 integrity defects needed to run the study be fixed?

Risks

• Sunk-cost and identity pressure may resist a null result.
• A weak adjacent comparator would make the study non-discriminating.
• Provider familiarity can favor the FE arm.
• Documentation dose can masquerade as mechanism.
• More infrastructure can postpone the decision while increasing cost.
• Engineering consumers can mistake a provisional synthesis for an accepted release.

Next recommended action

Use this source registry to repair EX-FE-0002, then complete its independent audit, blinding, recognition, key-custody, and reviewer gates—or create an authorized supersession decision. After the mechanism boundary is adjudicated, convene an adjacent-method and quantitative-method review, finalize next-experiment.md, implement only the v1.1 P0 integrity controls required for trustworthy execution, preregister, and run the artificial matched comparison. Publish every result direction.

Cold-start test

A successor should be able to answer:

1. What is FE now? A research program and candidate integrated profile.
2. What is disputed? Incremental utility, generality, and any discipline claim.
3. Why was the claim narrowed? Collective adjacent-field coverage, no unique mechanism, no matched outcomes, and low institutional maturity.
4. What remains useful? The object focus, portable evidence/operation model, profile pilot, and research infrastructure.
5. What decides the next state? The preregistered matched-utility study.
6. What must not happen? Silent v1.0 mutation, autonomous promotion, disappearance of null results, or discipline claims based on tooling.

If these answers cannot be reconstructed from this package alone, the handoff has failed and must be repaired before new work begins.