🧠 Company-Wide Engineering Constitution

🧠 Company-Wide Engineering Constitution

Intent-First Governance for a Living Codebase

Preamble

This Constitution exists to protect engineering clarity, autonomy, and velocity at scale.

As organizations grow, repositories accumulate faster than understanding. When intent is missing, code becomes digital debt—expensive to maintain, dangerous to change, and impossible to govern.

This Constitution establishes Intent as the first-class artifact of engineering.

It replaces archaeology with accountability.

It governs the future, not the past.

Article I — The Principle of Declared Intent

No code change may occur without a declared future intent.

• A repository without articulated intent is considered unowned.

• An unowned repository may exist, but it may not evolve.

• Intent is not documentation; it is a contract with the future.

Intent answers one question only:

“Why does this repository exist, and what is it becoming?”

Article II — The Entry Toll Rule

Intent is required only when work begins.

• No mass audits.

• No retroactive cleanup.

• No centralized archaeology.

The Entry Toll activates when:

• A branch is created

• A ticket references the repository

• A pull request is opened

At that moment, intent must be declared.

Unused repositories remain untouched until claimed—or archived.

Article III — The INTENT.md Mandate

Every active repository must contain a root-level INTENT.md.

Required Sections

1. Repository Intent (Why)

   
   

   The business or platform purpose.

2. Structural Intent (How)

   
   

   The allowed boundaries for code growth.

3. Directional Intent (Next)

   
   

   The architectural direction of evolution.

4. Ownership

   
   

   One accountable team.

This file is:

• Mandatory

• Versioned

• Enforced by CI/CD

• Reviewed like code

Article IV — The Intent Hierarchy

Intent is defined at three levels, all required.

Level 1 — Repository Intent

The existential purpose.

“This repository exists to…”

Only one purpose is allowed.

Level 2 — Structural Intent

The internal map of meaning.

• 3–5 intent folders maximum

• All new code must belong to one

• No unbounded dumping grounds

Structure reflects thinking, not file types.

Level 3 — Directional Intent

The declared future bias.

Examples:

• Event-Driven

• API-First

• Serverless-Only

• Library-Only

• Decommissioning

This is not a promise of speed.

It is a declaration of direction.

Article V — CI/CD as the Enforcer

Governance is automated, not debated.

CI/CD must block merges if:

• INTENT.md is missing

• Required sections are incomplete

• New files violate declared intent boundaries

Pipelines enforce alignment, not style.

Article VI — The Right to Archive

If no team can articulate future intent:

• The repository is marked ARCHIVE-CANDIDATE

• No new work is allowed

• Leadership approval is required to revive it

This is not punishment.

It is clarity.

Article VII — Minimal Cognitive Load

This system is designed for five-minute compliance.

• No historical explanation required

• No refactor required

• No rewrite required

Teams are never asked:

“Explain what this repo is.”

They are asked only:

“What do you want it to be?”

Article VIII — The Living Architecture Map

The organization’s architecture is not a diagram.

It is the aggregate of declared intents across repositories.

Leadership gains:

• A real-time map of strategic direction

• Visibility into platform vs product investment

• Natural identification of dead code

Without audits.

Without meetings.

Without fear.

Article IX — Engineering Autonomy

This Constitution increases freedom.

Engineers may:

• Choose how to implement

• Choose tools within intent boundaries

• Evolve systems deliberately

But they must:

• Declare intent

• Respect boundaries

• Own the future they define

Article X — Amendments

This Constitution may evolve.

Amendments require:

• Clear articulation of new intent

• Demonstrated reduction in cognitive load

• Preservation of autonomy

Governance exists to remove friction, not create it.

Closing Declaration

This organization does not govern code.

It governs intent.

Code without intent is noise.

Intent without code is imagination.

Together, they form a living system—

one that scales to thousands of repositories

without losing its mind.