II · Gnōthi seauton · Know thyself
Your logic is capital.
Most businesses hold more undocumented business logic than they realize.
Rules trapped in people’s heads and spreadsheets become a versioned, tested registry.
In practice
What it means for your system.
The rules that run your business are an asset once they are written down. Until then, they live with the people who know them, and agents cannot follow them.
- Each rule has an owner, its exceptions, and the reason behind it.
- Rules are versioned and tested like code, so every change can be reviewed.
- Agents read the same rules your people follow.
The word for it
Technē
τέχνη
Technē is Greek for “craft knowledge, how a trade’s work is done.” Your team’s know-how is a craft, and it can be written down, tested, and kept.
Why it matters
What your best people know is an asset you have not yet recorded.
Every business runs on rules nobody wrote down: when to grant an exception, which customer comes first, what counts as complete. They live in senior staff, old spreadsheets, and email threads. That knowledge has real value, and today individuals hold it rather than the business.
Unrecorded rules carry a cost. Each new hire relearns them, each departure puts them at risk, and each system change can quietly break one. An agent cannot follow a rule that exists only in memory.
Written down, the same rules become capital the business owns. They can be reviewed, improved, and handed to an agent with confidence. A change becomes a decision with a record, rather than a habit that drifts.
Read it accurately
Scope of the rule.
- The people who apply a rule help write it.
- The people who apply a rule help write it down. Their expertise becomes a record the business holds.
- A written rule can still change.
- A written rule can still change. Each change is tested against its cases and approved by the rule’s owner before it takes effect.
- Only confirmed rules enter the registry.
- Writing rules down lets the owner confirm, revise, or retire each one. Only confirmed rules enter the registry.
How it is measured
Every rule is something you can check.
Rules that are versioned and tested, each with an owner and a change history.
In an engagement
Where the rule is applied.
The rule is checked at each stage of the work, from the first design to the system in operation.
In the design
The rules a workflow depends on are found with the people who apply them. A Business Logic Registry records each with its owner and exceptions.
In the build
Each agent is configured to the written rules, thresholds, and named approvers. Each rule states whether an agent may observe, recommend, or execute.
At acceptance
Each rule runs against its test cases, exceptions included. It is accepted when every case gives the outcome your owner agreed.
In operation
Each rule change is versioned, tested, and approved by its owner. The history shows what changed, who approved it, and when.
Check your own system
Five questions to ask this week.
Each one has a yes or no answer. A no marks where to start.
- If your most experienced person left, could someone else apply their rules from what is written down?
- Can you find the current version of your most important pricing or approval rule?
- When a rule changes, is there a record of who changed it and why?
- Do people doing the same job apply the same rules in the same way?
- Could you show an auditor or a new hire the test cases behind a rule?
Delivered through
The services that apply this rule.
Gnōthi seauton
Know thyself.
We start with how your business actually works.
Apply the rule
Check it against your own system.
Questions
What counts as business logic?
Any rule that shapes a decision: pricing, eligibility, approvals, routing, and exceptions. If a person applies it the same way each time, it can be written down and tested.
Does writing rules down remove judgment from the work?
No. The registry separates rules from judgment and marks which decisions stay with a person. Your people spend their judgment where it counts.
Where do we start if our rules are scattered?
Start with one workflow that matters commercially. A Business Logic Registry captures its rules first, and others follow as they come into scope.
How do we check this rule on our own system?
Pick a rule that matters to revenue or risk. Ask whether it is versioned and tested, and whether it has a named owner and a change history.
What happens when two people apply a rule differently?
Writing the rule down brings the difference to light. The rule’s owner decides the correct version, and the test cases record it.