The 17 Forge Principles

ForgeSDLC stays lean by treating these principles as a constitutional check: any new ceremony, artifact, or metric must earn its place by improving decision quality or waste removal — not by habit or compliance theater.

The list below matches the canonical breakdown in the Forge methodology blueprint. For vocabulary (Sparks, Versonas, Charge, …), start with What is ForgeSDLC?.

Core principles (1–8)

1. Refine before you commit. Ore must become Ingot before execution.
2. Keep work small enough to challenge. Sparks make learning fast and waste visible.
3. AI strengthens thinking; humans own judgment. Versonas challenge, not decide.
4. Decisions deserve memory. The Ember Log captures why.
5. Release on evidence, not optimism. The Assay Gate makes release discipline explicit.
6. Paused is not failed. Banked is a strategic choice with preserved context.
7. Standard process stays standard. Forge adds precision inside ceremonies, not alternatives.
8. Scale by trust, not by process weight. Same vocabulary solo through enterprise.

Lean tenets (9–17)

Forge must never add more ceremony than it removes waste:

1. One hierarchy, one set of IDs. Sparks are existing Tasks with Forge semantics layered on — do not duplicate the WBS.
2. Collapse levels when they already fit. If refinement already produces ready Stories, those are Ingots. No extra ceremony.
3. Log decisions, not narration. Two lines explaining why beat two pages of session recap.
4. Automate the journal. If logging feels like overhead, fix the tooling.
5. Versonas at decision points, not everywhere. Before costly commitments, not as bureaucracy.
6. Charge is a view, not a board. Label or filter, not a separate tracking surface.
7. Scale formality to risk. Solo: self-assessment checklist. Enterprise: gate meeting.
8. Defer tooling until volume demands it. Start with journal + git; add dashboards later.
9. No new meetings. Standard ceremony names, Forge mechanics inside.

Where to go next

• Forge SDLC overview — methodology narrative and scaling model in Blueprints.
• Forge foundation (201) — how Forge fits SDLC phases and roles.
• The ForgeSDLC Manifesto — values and practice.