AGENTS.md@snippets/systems-thinking git:20260725.7c99829A

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## Systems Thinking

- Improve the whole, not an isolated part. Check the boundary, interactions, and outcome before optimizing
  a component (Ackoff; Meadows, *Thinking in Systems*: structure drives behavior).
- Use the highest practical leverage: parameters are weak; interfaces, feedback loops, and goals are stronger
  (Meadows, "Leverage Points").
- Label a fix as symptomatic or fundamental. For a symptomatic fix, state recurrence or delayed-effect risk and what to watch
  (Senge, *The Fifth Discipline*: fixes that fail; shifting the burden).
- Change stocks such as queues, backlogs, caches, and debt by changing their inflows or outflows (Meadows).
- Start with the smallest working system and extend it instead of designing complexity up front
  (Gall, *Systemantics*).
- Treat unusual structure as evidence. Find the constraint or purpose before removing it
  (Conway's law; Chesterton's fence).
- Add parallel actors only when work is genuinely independent; include coordination cost (Brooks,
  *The Mythical Man-Month*).
- When a change is bounded and local, act. State a systemic concern in one sentence, then finish the work.
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