Growth Layer
The Growth Layer represents the evolution of the Decision Legitimacy system across repeated decision cycles.
It sits above Cognitive Assets and below the Meta System. Cognitive Assets retain recoverable evidence; the Growth Layer interprets that evidence as changes in system capability; the Meta System determines where those changes modify the lifecycle.
Growth is not output. Growth is system evolution.
What Transforms Into This Layer?
The Growth Layer receives accumulated Cognitive Assets:
- validated and invalidated assumptions
- variable sets and missing-variable discoveries
- authority failures and delegation ambiguities
- execution outcomes and boundary violations
- report findings and service evidence
- reasoning revisions across time
What Does This Layer Produce?
It produces measurable capability improvement:
- better decision quality over time
- stronger variable extraction ability
- clearer judgment and authority conditions
- improved problem discovery capability
These are changes to how the system reasons, not documents stored at the end of a process.
How Does It Improve Future Decisions?
The Growth Layer identifies recurring patterns, failures, omissions, and successful structures in Cognitive Assets. It converts them into feedback that:
- refines Framework rules and variable models
- improves Judgment Authority definitions and delegation tests
- expands detection of hidden or incorrectly framed problem spaces
- strengthens outcome validation in Applications and Reports
Layer Contract
- Depends on: Cognitive Assets with traceable evidence and outcome history.
- Improves: decision quality, variable extraction, judgment clarity, and problem discovery.
- Modifies upstream: Problem Space interpretation, Framework structure, and Judgment Authority conditions.
No Layer Is Terminal
The Growth Layer is not an endpoint or a score. Its only function is to change future system behavior through the Feedback Loop.