---
id: F-0001
type: framework-finding
class: CONCEPT_DRIFT
status: resolved
discovered: "2026-08-22"
resolved: "2026-08-22"
discovered_by: concept-assessment
source: history/2026-08-22-concept-assessment-swot.md
workplan: TD-WP-0002
task: TD-WP-0002-T01
---

# F-0001 — Three conflicting milestone sequences

## Class

`CONCEPT_DRIFT` — the repository carried three mutually inconsistent statements
of the same concept, with no explicit decision revising any of them.

Note the unusual shape: §5 of the Improvement Loop defines concept drift as
*implementation* diverging from concept. Here there was no implementation at all.
The drift was **document-to-document**, which the taxonomy does not currently
name. See "Residual" below.

## Observation

Three documents each defined a milestone sequence for the same project:

| Document | Sequence |
|---|---|
| `INTENT.md` § Initial Milestones | M0–M3 |
| `docs/TestDriverConceptModel.md` § 15 | M0–M3 (different content) |
| `docs/TestDriverInitialMilestones.md` | M0–M10 |

The two M0–M3 sequences disagreed with each other and both disagreed with the
M0–M10 sequence. `M2`, for instance, denoted "Adaptation and Crystallization" in
one document and "Test-Driver Lab" in another — so an unqualified reference to
"M2" was ambiguous across the corpus.

## Why it matters

The project's own thesis is that implementations must not silently redefine
intended behaviour, and that concept drift is a first-class finding. The corpus
exhibited the failure it was written to prevent, before a single line of code
existed. Left unresolved, every subsequent milestone reference in commits,
workplans and evidence would have been ambiguous.

## Resolution

Path 2 of §5 — *the concept is deliberately revised*.

`docs/TestDriverInitialMilestones.md` (M0–M10) is now **canonical**. It is the
most complete of the three, is the only one carrying exit criteria and success
metrics, and is the only one that names the lab, self-verification, the
improvement loop and the compression review.

The other two sections were replaced in place with a superseded banner and a
mapping table rather than deleted, so that references from earlier commits and
from `history/` remain interpretable.

Execution order is deliberately *not* the canonical order:
`workplans/TD-WP-0002-vertical-spike-crystallization.md` drives one thin thread
through canonical M1–M7 rather than completing each milestone in turn. Canonical
sequence and execution sequence are now distinct and separately stated.

## Residual

The finding taxonomy (§9) has no class for divergence **between concept
documents** — `CONCEPT_DRIFT` is defined as implementation-vs-concept. This
finding was classified `CONCEPT_DRIFT` as the nearest fit.

Carry into `TD-WP-0002-T10` (compression review): either widen `CONCEPT_DRIFT`
to cover intra-conceptual inconsistency, or accept that pre-implementation
document drift is not a framework finding at all and should be handled as
ordinary editorial hygiene. Do not add a new finding class before that question
is answered — the taxonomy is already larger than the evidence supporting it.