#Ontological Parsimony (C-5)

A.11 · Stable · Part A - Kernel Architecture Cluster

#About this pattern

This is a generated FPF pattern page projected from the published FPF source. It is canonical FPF content for this ID; it is not a fpf-memory product feature page.

#How to use this pattern

Read the ID, status, type, and normativity first. Use the content for exact wording, the relations for adjacent concepts, and citations to keep active work grounded without pasting the whole specification.

“Add only what you cannot subtract.”

The FPF kernel aspires to remain small enough to learn in a week yet broad enough to model engines, proofs and budgets alike. Unchecked growth of primitives—well‑known from earlier “enterprise ontologies”—bloats diagrams, stalls tooling and intimidates new adopters. C‑5 therefore demands minimal‑sufficiency: a new core concept enters the kernel only when all routes of composition, refinement or role‑projection fail to express it without semantic loss.

#Keywords

• minimalism
• simplicity
• Occam's razor
• essential concepts.

#Content

#Context

The FPF kernel aspires to remain small enough to learn in a week yet broad enough to model engines, proofs and budgets alike. Unchecked growth of primitives—well‑known from earlier “enterprise ontologies”—bloats diagrams, stalls tooling and intimidates new adopters. C‑5 therefore demands minimal‑sufficiency: a new core concept enters the kernel only when all routes of composition, refinement or role‑projection fail to express it without semantic loss.

#Problem

Result: steep learning curves, fragile integrations, eroded trust in “first‑principles” promises.

#Forces

#Solution — Four‑Gate Minimal‑Sufficiency Protocol

A proposal to add a U.Type or core relation MUST clear all four gates before admission and survives under a Sunset Timer thereafter.

Lifecycle — Sunset Timer A cleared type enters the kernel provisionally with a timer (default = 4 quarters). If usage count remains zero at expiry, the type faces Sunset Review: delete, demote to Extention Pattern, or renew with fresh evidence.

Manager’s mnemonic: “Compose, Unique, Functional, Crisp — or sunset.”

#Archetypal Grounding

#Conformance Checklist

#Consequences

#Rationale

Cognitive science shows working memory tops out around 4 ± 1 unfamiliar chunks (Cowan 2021). Combining that with Gate discipline keeps kernel size tractable (≈ 40 primitives). Software metrics from lean DSLs (Rust traits, Kubernetes CRDs) reveal that compositional modelling reduces change propagation cost by ~30 %. The Sunset Timer borrows from Kubernetes feature gate “alpha/beta/GA” progression model — proved effective at pruning half‑baked APIs.

#Relations

#Illustrative Uses (2022 – 2025)

• Robotics CAL 2023 – U.LiDARSensor rejected (Gate G‑1 passed via role composition), saving three schema migrations.
• Green‑Finance CAL 2024 – U.CarbonCredit admitted provisionally, but Sunset Review (usage = 0) demoted it to sector pattern, avoiding kernel noise.
• Neuro‑informatics 2025 – U.ProvenanceChain accepted; by Q3 its heavy reuse in three patterns lifted timer and marked it established.

#Open Questions

1. Hard size cap — should the kernel enforce an absolute limit (e.g., 64 live types) beyond which any new entry forces retirement of an old one?
2. Semantic similarity tooling — can embedding models automate Gate G‑2 overlap detection reliably across domains?
3. Gate calibration — is default Sunset Timer (4 quarters) optimal for research‑oriented patterns with slower uptake?

#A.11:End