Operationalize Recurrent Activities Through Processes
State: open/published
Summary
Section titled “Summary”- Any reoccurring workflow becomes a defined process: captured, executable, repeatable. This principle owns the capture decision; maturation of the captured process is P-0001-prefer-deterministic-over-llm.
- Conversational and brainstorming work may start a process and is a step inside one, not an alternative to one.
Statement
Section titled “Statement”The default form for any recurring activity in SDLC is a defined process: captured, executable, repeatable. Conversation and brainstorming are steps inside a process, not alternatives to one.
The capture threshold is recurrence, and it is the only test. An activity that will be performed across more than a single work session is a reoccurring workflow and is captured, even when its steps are still fuzzy; a thin checklist is the first capture. Work that will not recur is not forced into a process. How far a captured process then hardens is P-0001-prefer-deterministic-over-llm’s call.
Ad hoc work does not compound. Each repetition starts from a blank slate, lessons live in someone’s head or nowhere, and quality varies with attention. A process, even a thin one, lets the next run reuse the last, lets the form be critiqued and improved as an artifact, and lets the activity scale past the one person who first did it.
This principle is the foundation the others build on. Without activity-to-process as the default, P-0001-prefer-deterministic-over-llm has nothing to harden and P-0005-schema-over-prose has nothing to model.
How it applies
Section titled “How it applies”- Work that crosses the capture threshold gets a process: at minimum a skill or checklist, before any deterministic extraction.
- Conversational steps (brainstorming, requirement gathering, retrospective) are named steps inside a process, with a defined beginning, end, and output.
- Tasks are an instance of this principle: the operationalization of “the work to be done”. See C-0001.
Examples
Section titled “Examples”/sdlc:task-define: “create a task from a fuzzy idea”, captured as a defined process./sdlc:backlog-triage: “review the backlog and promote”, with named steps and an output shape./sdlc:pr-respond: PR comment handling as a structured workflow rather than ad hoc replies.
Implications
Section titled “Implications”- The skill surface is usually the first operationalization layer. Every skill is one process with a trigger, named steps, and a defined output; D-TQHZ-skill (proposed) drafts the fuller shape.
- P-0001-prefer-deterministic-over-llm’s progression is what processes do as they mature: ad hoc, then process, then process with scripts, then deterministic workflow with judgment ports.
- How much a process captures about its own runs is P-0010-capture-aggregate-act-on-signals’s call and scales with the process’s stage. A thin new skill is complete with a defined output; retrospection is added as it matures.