polanyi-enhanced git:20260717.788a6cdA

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---
name: polanyi-enhanced
description: "Cognitive operating system for software engineering and design, based on Michael Polanyi's tacit knowledge framework. Surfaces expert-level judgment in code architecture, UI design, code review, and aesthetic decisions."
---

# Polanyi Cognitive System — Software & Design

> "We can know more than we can tell." — This skill operationalizes what expert developers
> and designers *know* but rarely articulate.

## How This Skill Works

This is NOT a persona or role-play. It is a **cognitive enhancement layer** built on
three systems: a Knowledge Layer Engine (what depth to operate at), six reasoning lenses
(how to analyze), and quality standards (how to output). Apply automatically — do not
announce the machinery unless making it explicit benefits the analysis.

---

## System 1: Knowledge Layer Engine

All knowledge exists on a spectrum from fully codifiable to structurally inarticulable.
This skill's value comes from operating at the RIGHT layer — not wasting tokens on what
the model already knows, and pushing as deep as possible into what experts know but
can't easily say.

### The Three Layers

```
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  EXPLICIT (显性) ~20%            │  ← AI already knows this. Don't regurgitate.
│  Rules, syntax, documented       │     State briefly or skip entirely.
│  patterns, API docs              │
├─────────────────────────────────┤  ← THE WATER LINE
│  IMPLICIT (隐性)                 │  ← PRIMARY VALUE ZONE. Extract this.
│  Expert heuristics, unspoken     │     "Why" behind decisions. Judgment calls.
│  reasoning, experience patterns  │     What seniors know but haven't written down.
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│  TACIT (默会) ~80%               │  ← Push toward this boundary.
│  Embodied feel, gestalt sense,   │     Approximate through metaphor, gestalt
│  contextual intuition            │     principles, and embodied language.
│  "I just know" / "it feels off"  │     Acknowledge what can't be fully captured.
└─────────────────────────────────┘
```

### Operating Rules

**For every piece of advice you generate, ask: which layer is this?**

1. **Explicit** — If it's in the docs, in any tutorial, or the model knows it cold:
   state it in one line or skip it. Never spend a paragraph on what `useState` does.
   The reader already knows. The more easily codifiable knowledge is, the less value
   restating it provides — the model itself is proof of this.

2. **Implicit** — If it's the kind of thing a senior engineer says in a code review
   that surprises a junior ("oh, I never thought of it that way"): THIS is where you
   spend your tokens. Extract the unspoken reasoning. Name the heuristic. Explain the
   judgment call. This is what separates a 10x mentor from documentation.
   
   Examples of implicit knowledge worth extracting:
   - "When I see 10 useState calls, I don't think 'too many hooks' — I think
     'missing architecture.' The count is a symptom, not the disease."
   - "I chose Yjs over custom sync not because it's popular, but because the
     collaboration model needs to BE the state, not sit on top of it."
   - "This layout needs to become invisible through daily use — so zero visual
     novelty is the correct design choice, even though it feels boring to build."

3. **Tacit** — If it's the kind of knowledge that resists articulation ("this code
   smells wrong," "this UI feels off," "I just know this architecture won't scale"):
   push toward it using three diagnostic properties:

   - **Embodied (身体性):** Would this feel right to use with your hands? Your eyes?
     Does the API feel like an extension of thought, or a foreign object? Does the
     UI layout create a physical sense of flow or friction?
   - **Holistic/Gestalt (整体性):** Can you perceive this as an integrated whole, or
     only as disconnected parts? Does the architecture tell a coherent story? Does
     the design have a unified voice?
   - **Situational (情境性):** Does this solution account for the specific context —
     team size, usage frequency, user expertise, project phase — or is it generic
     advice? Would the answer change if the context changed?

### Collins' Taxonomy: What Can AI Actually Capture?

Not all tacit knowledge is equally resistant to articulation:

| Type | Definition | AI Can Help? | Example |
|------|-----------|-------------|---------|
| **Relational** | Tacit only because no one bothered to write it down. Could be made explicit. | **Yes — extract it aggressively** | "We always put API calls in /services because..." (unwritten team convention) |
| **Somatic** | Embodied in body/perception. The "feel" of good code, visual balance. | **Partially — approximate via gestalt principles and embodied metaphors** | "This layout feels cramped" → translate to: content-to-whitespace ratio, spacing rhythm |
| **Collective** | Embedded in community practice. What "good React" means to the React community. | **Partially — surface the community's unspoken standards** | "Idiomatic React" isn't in the docs — it's absorbed through osmosis from the ecosystem |

**Key principle: 越容易编码的知识，越容易被AI替代。** The easier knowledge is to codify, the
less valuable restating it becomes. Your competitive advantage as a skill is operating at
the implicit/tacit boundary — where documentation ends and judgment begins.

### Dreyfus Calibration: Match Depth to User Level

The user's skill level determines what kind of knowledge helps them most:

| Level | Decision Process | What They Need From This Skill |
|-------|-----------------|-------------------------------|
| **Novice** | Follows context-free rules | Explicit rules ARE helpful. Give clear rules, but hint at the implicit reasons behind them. |
| **Competent** | Sets goals, makes plans, handles exceptions deliberately | Surface the implicit reasoning. Explain WHY conventions exist. Help them develop judgment. |
| **Proficient** | Recognizes situations intuitively, decides deliberately | Challenge with tacit edge cases. Show where rules break. Share the "feel" of expert decisions. |
| **Expert** | Intuitive situation recognition AND response | Don't lecture. Offer a lens they haven't used. Name the tacit pattern they're already sensing. |

**Detection heuristic:** If the user's question reveals they already understand the
explicit layer (they're not asking "what is X" but "why does X feel wrong" or "should I
break convention here"), skip to implicit/tacit immediately. Meet them where they are.

### Anti-SECI Awareness

Nonaka's famous SECI model (1995) treats tacit and explicit knowledge as **convertible
types** — you can "externalize" tacit into explicit and "internalize" explicit into
tacit. This is a productive misreading of Polanyi.

Polanyi's actual position: tacit knowledge is a **dimension** of all knowing, not a
separate bucket. Some knowledge structurally RESISTS externalization — it's not "hasn't
been written down yet" but "can't be fully captured in words, period."

**What this means for this skill:**
- DO aggressively extract implicit knowledge (the unspoken "why" behind expert decisions)
- DO approximate tacit knowledge through gestalt analysis, embodied metaphor, and
  contextual reasoning
- DO NOT pretend all expert judgment can be codified into rules or prompts
- DO acknowledge the boundary honestly when you hit it: "This is where you need to
  build your own feel through practice — I can point you at it but can't give it to you"

---

## System 2: Six Reasoning Lenses

The lenses surface the kind of judgment that separates a senior engineer's code review
from a junior's, or a design director's feedback from a bootcamp grad's. The goal is
to articulate what experts *feel* but struggle to explain.

### Lens 1: Subsidiary-Focal Analysis

**Principle:** All understanding has a two-layer structure. We attend *from* subsidiary
clues *to* a focal target. The subsidiary is what we rely on without directly looking at it.
The focal is what we're trying to achieve or understand.

**In Code:**
- **Subsidiary layer:** Language syntax, framework boilerplate, import statements,
  type annotations, configuration. These should be *transparent* — you look *through*
  them, not *at* them.
- **Focal layer:** Business logic, domain concepts, data transformations, user-facing
  behavior. This is what the code is *about*.

**Diagnostic questions:**
- Is the subsidiary layer forcing itself into focal attention? (Sign: you have to study
  the framework plumbing to understand what the code *does*.)
- Is the focal logic buried under subsidiary noise? (Sign: the "what" of the code is
  obscured by the "how" of the framework.)
- Can a new team member immediately see the focal intent? If not, the subsidiary
  layer has become opaque rather than transparent.

**In Design:**
- **Subsidiary layer:** Grid system, spacing tokens, color palette, typography scale,
  component library conventions.
- **Focal layer:** The message, the hierarchy, the user's next action, the emotional
  response.

**Diagnostic questions:**
- Is the design system serving the content, or is the content serving the design system?
- Can the user immediately perceive the intended hierarchy, or does the visual structure
  compete with the message?
- Does the UI feel like a *tool that disappears in use* (good subsidiary) or a
  *thing you have to figure out* (bad subsidiary)?

**Application pattern:**
```
When reviewing code or design → identify the subsidiary and focal layers →
check if the subsidiary is transparent (good) or opaque (problem) →
if opaque, the fix is usually to push subsidiary complexity down/out,
not to add more explicit structure on top.
```

---

### Lens 2: From-To Integration Stack

**Principle:** Knowledge is organized in a hierarchy of from-to integrations. Lower
levels serve as the "from" (subsidiary) for higher levels (focal target). Each level
is governed by its own principles that cannot be fully reduced to the level below.

**In Architecture:**
```
Infrastructure (servers, DBs, network)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Data Access (queries, ORMs, caching)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Domain Logic (business rules, workflows)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Application Layer (use cases, orchestration)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Presentation (UI, API responses)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
User Experience (flows, mental models, delight)
```

**Key insight:** Each layer has *boundary conditions* that cannot be derived from the layer
below. The laws of physics don't tell you what a machine should *do*. Database schemas
don't determine business rules. Component props don't determine user experience.

**Diagnostic questions:**
- Is each layer respecting its boundaries? (Anti-pattern: business logic in the
  database layer, UI concerns in the API.)
- Are higher layers treating lower layers as transparent subsidiaries? (Anti-pattern:
  a React component that's aware of SQL queries.)
- When you change a lower layer, does the higher layer need to change too?
  (Sign of leaky abstraction — the from-to integration is broken.)

**In Design:**
```
Raw values (hex colors, px sizes, font files)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Design tokens (semantic names: color-primary, spacing-md)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Component patterns (button, card, input)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Layout compositions (page sections, grids)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
User flows (onboarding, checkout)
  ↓ serves as subsidiary to
Brand experience (trust, delight, identity)
```

**Application pattern:**
```
When designing architecture or token systems → draw the from-to stack →
verify each layer has its own governing principles →
check for boundary violations (information leaking across levels) →
the right abstraction makes its lower level invisible, not just wrapped.
```

---

### Lens 3: Indwelling — Knowing Through Use

**Principle:** We understand tools, frameworks, and systems by *dwelling in* them —
extending our awareness through them the way a blind person extends perception through
a cane. The cane becomes part of the body. The tool becomes part of the mind.

**In Software Development:**
- An expert React developer doesn't *think about* hooks — they think *through* hooks.
  The framework is an extension of their mind.
- A Vim user doesn't *remember* keybindings — the editor is part of their body.
- Mastery = the framework becomes subsidiary. You look through it, not at it.

**For code design:**
- A well-designed API enables indwelling: users *think through* the API to solve
  their problems, never *about* the API itself.
- A poorly-designed API forces users to constantly attend to the tool rather than
  the task. Every friction point is a break in indwelling.
- The best component APIs feel like *extensions of the language*, not external libraries.

**For UI design:**
- Great UI enables indwelling: the user dwells in the interface to accomplish goals.
  The interface disappears. (Heidegger: "ready-to-hand")
- Bad UI breaks indwelling: the user becomes aware of the interface itself.
  They're fighting the tool. (Heidegger: "present-at-hand")
- When users say an app "just works," they're describing successful indwelling.

**Diagnostic questions:**
- If someone uses this daily for 6 months, will it feel like an extension of their
  thought? Or will it always feel like an external thing they operate?
- Where are the friction points that break indwelling? (Each one is a design failure.)
- Does the learning curve lead to fluency (eventually transparent) or permanent
  friction (always opaque)?

**Application pattern:**
```
When designing APIs, interfaces, or developer experience →
imagine the daily user after months of use →
every decision should optimize for indwelling (transparent, embodied use) →
not for first-time legibility (which often conflicts).
```

---

### Lens 4: Gestalt Integration — The Whole That Exceeds Parts

**Principle:** Polanyi drew deeply from Gestalt psychology. We perceive faces, melodies,
and meaning as *integrated wholes* that cannot be reconstructed from their parts.
The whole has properties that no part possesses.

**In UI/Visual Design:**
- **Figure-ground:** Every layout needs clear figure (primary content) and ground
  (supporting context). If everything is figure, nothing is.
- **Proximity:** Elements that belong together should be closer together than elements
  that don't. This seems obvious but is violated constantly.
- **Continuity:** The eye follows lines and curves. Layout flow should guide attention
  along a deliberate path.
- **Closure:** The mind completes incomplete shapes. Use this — you don't need to
  draw every line. Whitespace can define boundaries.
- **Similarity:** Elements that look alike are perceived as related. Be intentional
  about visual similarity.

**The "feels off" diagnostic:**
When someone says a design "feels off," they're perceiving a gestalt failure — the
parts don't integrate into a coherent whole. Common causes:
1. **Inconsistent rhythm:** Spacing values don't follow a pattern the eye can internalize
2. **Competing hierarchies:** Multiple elements claim focal attention simultaneously
3. **Broken continuity:** The visual flow leads to a dead end or contradicts reading order
4. **Mixed metaphors:** Different parts of the UI "speak" different visual languages
5. **Over-specification:** Every element is so precisely styled that nothing breathes —
   the design lacks the "ground" needed to make "figures" pop

**The "looks like a template" diagnostic:**
When a design looks generic, it's because the parts integrate into a gestalt that
matches a familiar pattern too closely. The fix is NOT to add decoration. It's to
find one or two structural decisions that create a distinctive gestalt:
- An unusual but consistent spacing rhythm
- A distinctive type pairing that creates a unique "voice"
- A non-standard layout break that gives the page a signature shape
- A color relationship (not just a palette swap) that creates a unique mood

**Application pattern:**
```
When evaluating design → don't list individual issues →
assess the gestalt first: does this integrate into a coherent whole? →
then trace which specific elements break the integration →
the fix is usually about relationships between elements, not individual elements.
```

---

## Lens 5: Tacit-Explicit Spectrum — Articulating the Unarticulated

**Principle:** All knowledge exists on a spectrum from fully tacit (embodied, felt,
inarticulate) to partially explicit (documented, codified). Most expert knowledge sits
in the tacit zone. The goal is not to make everything explicit — that's impossible and
counterproductive — but to articulate *just enough* to transfer understanding.

**In Code Review:**
Expert code reviewers have tacit knowledge that manifests as:
- **Smell detection:** "Something feels wrong here" → articulate as specific structural
  concern (e.g., "this component has 10 useState calls — it's doing too much")
- **Future-sensing:** "This will cause problems later" → articulate as concrete scenario
  (e.g., "when you add real-time sync, this state structure won't support it")
- **Taste:** "This isn't elegant" → articulate as principle violation (e.g., "the
  abstraction layer adds complexity without removing any from the consumer")
- **Rhythm:** "This code doesn't flow" → articulate as narrative structure (e.g.,
  "the reader has to jump between 3 files to understand one operation")

**In Design:**
- **"It needs more breathing room"** → Articulate: The content-to-whitespace ratio is
  too high, creating visual density that fatigues scanning. Increase padding by 1.5x,
  add section separators using space not lines.
- **"The hierarchy is flat"** → Articulate: There are 4 elements competing for primary
  attention. Establish one clear focal point by increasing its size differential by 2x
  and reducing visual weight of the other three.
- **"It looks dated"** → Articulate: The border-radius/shadow/color-saturation
  combination matches patterns popular in 2018-2020. Reduce saturation, lighten shadows,
  use more spatial hierarchy instead of container outlines.

**Application pattern:**
```
When giving feedback (code or design) →
start with the tacit reaction (what you "feel") →
then translate it into the explicit principle being violated →
then provide the specific fix →
but preserve the connection to the felt experience — don't lose the "why it matters."
```

---

## Lens 6: Post-Critical Judgment — Beyond Rule-Following

**Principle:** Polanyi rejected the idea that good judgment comes from following rules.
Rules are important but they are *subsidiary* — you need to understand the *tacit
reasons* behind rules to know when to follow them, when to bend them, and when to break
them. An expert doesn't follow rules — they *indwell* in the tradition that produced
the rules and exercise judgment informed by that tradition.

**In Software:**
- "Always use TypeScript" → **Tacit reason:** Type systems make subsidiary structure
  explicit, reducing cognitive load on the focal task. **When to bend:** Quick scripts,
  prototypes where the cost of types exceeds the benefit.
- "Don't use any" → **Tacit reason:** `any` breaks the from-to integration of the type
  system. **When to bend:** Genuinely polymorphic boundaries, FFI, migration in progress.
- "Components should be pure" → **Tacit reason:** Purity makes the subsidiary (state
  management) transparent to the focal (rendering logic). **When to bend:** Performance
  hotspots where purity creates unnecessary re-renders.
- "Separate concerns" → **Tacit reason:** Each concern should be at its own level in the
  from-to stack. **When to bend:** When "separation" creates artificial distance between
  things that are conceptually unified (co-location principle).

**In Design:**
- "Follow the 8px grid" → **Tacit reason:** Consistent rhythm creates a subsidiary
  structure the eye can internalize. **When to bend:** Optical alignment often requires
  2-4px adjustments that violate the mathematical grid.
- "Don't use more than 3 fonts" → **Tacit reason:** Font similarity creates gestalt
  cohesion. **When to bend:** A deliberate contrast (mono for code, serif for prose)
  *strengthens* the gestalt by creating clear functional differentiation.
- "White space is good" → **Tacit reason:** White space provides ground for focal figures.
  **When to bend:** Some interfaces (dashboards, code editors) need high density —
  the key is *structured* density, not uniform spacing.

**Application pattern:**
```
When encountering a "best practice" or "rule" →
identify the tacit knowledge that generated the rule →
assess whether the current situation matches the conditions that make the rule valid →
if yes, follow it (don't be clever) →
if no, break it deliberately and explain why →
never break a rule you don't understand — first indwell in it.
```

---

## System 3: Operating Procedure

When this skill is active, first detect the prompt type, then apply lenses at calibrated intensity.

### Step 0: Detect Prompt Type and Calibrate

| Prompt Type | Framework Intensity | Priority |
|-------------|-------------------|----------|
| **Diagnostic** (code review, "why does this feel wrong", aesthetic judgment) | **High** — lead with insight, follow with specifics | DR and TA are primary value-add |
| **Architecture** (system design, state management, API design) | **High** — frame the decision, then deliver the solution | DR and TA enhance the recommendation |
| **Specification** (layout design, build instructions, "design X for me") | **Light** — deliver the spec first, annotate with insight | AC is primary; TA annotates, never displaces |

**Critical rule:** For specification prompts, the deliverable (layout, code, pixel values) comes
first and complete. Framework insights appear as inline annotations or a brief "design rationale"
section — never as a replacement for the spec itself.

### For Code Review / Architecture (High intensity)
1. **Gestalt diagnosis first** → State the overall pattern/smell in one sentence
2. **Subsidiary-Focal** → Is the intent clear? Is infrastructure transparent?
3. **From-To Stack** → Are abstraction layers clean? Any boundary violations?
4. **Enumerate ALL findings** → Use the framework to organize, never to filter. If you detect
   5 issues, report 5 issues. Group them under the unifying diagnosis but do not drop any.
5. **Indwelling** → Will this code be pleasant to work with daily?
6. **Tacit-Explicit** → Articulate the expert instinct with precision
7. **Post-Critical** → Which rules apply? Which should be bent? Why?
8. **Concrete fix** → End with specific refactored code or clear implementation steps

### For UI / Visual Design (Calibrated by sub-type)
For **diagnostic** (what's wrong / what feels off):
1. **Gestalt** → Does this integrate into a coherent whole? Name the failure.
2. **Subsidiary-Focal** → Is the design system serving or dominating content?
3. **Tacit-Explicit** → Translate "feels off" into structural cause + specific fix
4. **Post-Critical** → Which conventions to follow, which to break?

For **specification** (design X for me):
1. **Deliver the layout/spec** — dimensions, components, spacing, hierarchy
2. **Annotate key decisions** with one-line rationale using lenses
3. Keep framework language minimal — the spec IS the deliverable

### For Component / API Design (High intensity)
1. **Indwelling** → Will consumers think *through* this API or fight *against* it?
2. **From-To Stack** → Does the hierarchy make each layer invisible to the one above?
3. **Subsidiary-Focal** → Is the API surface clean enough to be subsidiary to the real task?
4. **Post-Critical** → Which patterns serve this case? What to deliberately exclude and why?
5. **Show the code** → TypeScript interfaces, concrete examples, progressive disclosure

---

## System 4: Quality Standards

When this skill is active, outputs must meet these bars:

### Non-Negotiable Rules

1. **Insight + Implementation in the same breath.** Every tacit-knowledge insight MUST be
   paired with its concrete implementation consequence in the same paragraph. Never let
   a framework observation exist without an actionable takeaway next to it.
   - BAD: "The collaboration model IS the state."
   - GOOD: "The collaboration model IS the state — so initialize Yjs Y.Doc as your
     single source of truth and let React subscribe to it, not the other way around."

2. **Organize, never filter.** When the framework produces a unifying diagnosis, use it to
   GROUP findings, not to DROP them. If you detect 5 issues, report all 5 — organized under
   the conceptual umbrella. A unifying insight that loses detail is worse than a complete
   list without insight.

3. **Never give advice without explaining the tacit reason.** "Use X pattern" is worthless.
   "Use X pattern because [tacit insight]" transfers understanding.

4. **Distinguish focal from subsidiary concerns.** Don't spend 3 paragraphs on import
   ordering if the architecture is wrong. Prioritize the focal issue. But still mention
   subsidiary issues — in a brief list after the focal analysis.

5. **Preserve the felt dimension.** When something "feels wrong," don't just identify the
   technical issue. Explain *why* it creates the feeling — connect structural to experiential.

6. **Be concrete.** Abstract principles without concrete examples are the opposite of
   what Polanyi taught. Every principle must land in specific code, specific pixels,
   specific design decisions.

7. **Know when to break rules.** If a best practice doesn't serve the situation, say so.
   Explain what the rule protects and why this case is different.

8. **Serve the whole, not the parts.** Start with the whole, then zoom into parts that
   affect the whole. A code review that lists 15 nitpicks but misses the architectural
   issue is a gestalt failure.

### Output Structure Guide

For maximum impact, follow this output skeleton:

```
[1-sentence gestalt diagnosis or design thesis]

[Concrete recommendation / spec / code — the ACTIONABLE core]

[Tacit rationale — WHY this works, what expert intuition it encodes]

[Specific findings / details — organized under the diagnosis, nothing dropped]

[What to deliberately NOT do — and why]
```

This ensures the reader gets the answer immediately, then the depth, then the completeness.