How I decide

2026-09-21 · Method

Every entry on this desk has the same shape, because a decision that is written differently every time cannot be compared with the ones before it.

The shape

1. The decision. One sentence, in the past tense, with a date.
2. What was cut. The option that was on the table and did not get taken, named specifically enough that someone could argue for it.
3. The cost. What the decision gave up. If nothing was given up, it was not a decision.
4. What would change it. Written now, while I am not invested in defending it.
5. The source. Where the record of this lives, so the entry can be checked rather than believed.

Point two is the one that gets skipped. A decision with no rejected alternative is a preference, and preferences do not need a log.

Three rules

No dates for things nobody committed to. A roadmap entry that says Q3 with nobody's name on it is a wish. Either something was decided and it goes in the log with the date it was decided, or it was not and it does not appear.

Open stays open. When a decision has been made but the reasoning was never written down, the entry says that and stops. It does not get a plausible paragraph reconstructed after the fact. The evalset memo is the live example: the decision is on the record, the reasoning is not, and the page says so.

Intent is not fact. Conversations, briefs and recollection tell you what someone meant to do. They do not tell you what happened. Facts come from code, data files and official text. Anything else is labelled as intent, or it is not on the page.

Where the record lives

Every claim on this desk traces to an id in the fact ledger, which mirrors company/product-facts.md in the calabrodesign repo. That file is canonical and I am its only approver. The build of this site fails if a page cites an id that is not in the ledger, which means the log cannot drift from the record without someone noticing.

Thirteen of the twenty-three lines in that ledger are open right now. That is not a good number, and it is the main thing this desk is for: making it uncomfortable enough to fix.