frontend-patterns/research/plan/OpenQuestions.md

# Open Questions

## Core ontology

- Is `Authority → Projection → Affordance` a better primary axis than traditional "state management" terminology?
- Should `Mutation` represent intent, transport, state transition, or be split?
- Is `Reconciliation` independent enough to be a first-class responsibility?
- Should `Communication Window` become a canonical dimension?

## Pattern language

- What qualifies as a pattern rather than a technique?
- How much implementation detail belongs in canonical patterns?
- How do we represent patterns that only make sense at one scale?
- How should pattern relations be validated?

## Agentic use

- Which metadata is necessary for useful pattern retrieval?
- Should the pattern graph be exported as JSON/YAML/RDF?
- Can force matching be made quantitative without creating false precision?
- Can architecture review be expressed as unresolved-force detection?

## Evidence

- What makes a frontend pattern "established"?
- Should known uses be manually curated or automatically mined?
- How should contradictory source claims be represented?


## Investigation ledger

All entries are open. Update status and evidence links as research proceeds;
retaining a hypothesis requires evidence just as rejecting one does.

| Question | Working hypothesis | Disconfirmation exercise | Owner workplan |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q01 Responsibility coverage | Nine responsibilities explain the seed cases | Record any important decision that cannot be mapped without distortion | FEP-WP-0002 |
| Q02 Independence | Authority and projection can vary independently | Compare server-authoritative and local-first decisions; identify forced coupling | FEP-WP-0002 |
| Q03 Pattern recurrence | Candidates describe reusable configurations | Seek independent uses and a counterexample; reject product-specific restatements | FEP-WP-0002 |
| Q04 Generativity | Resulting contexts make later decisions easier | Compare walkthrough with a plain narrative and change one constraint | FEP-WP-0002 |
| Q05 Sequence ordering | The general sequence works with explicit branches | Test offline, collaboration and quality requirements that force earlier decisions | FEP-WP-0003 |
| Q06 Scale and boundaries | Composition and deployment are distinct dimensions | Analyze independently owned features that deploy together, and the reverse | FEP-WP-0003 |
| Q07 Retrieval | Metadata improves relevant, justified recommendations | Held-out prompts including ambiguity, incompatibility and abstention | FEP-WP-0004 |