⚒️ The Foundry Pattern

The Pattern

Turn living domain knowledge into skills agents can trust.

A Foundry keeps knowledge readable and reviewable by people, then compiles the right slices into frozen, traceable artifacts for agents. When the source changes, you recast—rather than hand-editing another skill.

Read the story See the model
Source of truth Knowledge base readable · linked · checked
One action Mold typed references + procedure
For the agent Frozen skill small · portable · self-contained
Lineage record Provenance source · target · references · checks
Author the knowledge once. Recast each artifact when the source moves.

Recommended route

Start here

Four focused reads: the problem, the machine, the discipline, and the proof.

  1. 01 Story Why handwritten skills rot—and why the knowledge base should be the source.
  2. 02 The Model The four parts: Knowledge Base, Mold, Cast, and Provenance.
  3. 03 Guiding Principles The disciplines that keep a Foundry trustworthy as its domain and tooling change.
  4. 04 Principles in Action The original two-instance case study, now pressure-tested by the third.

A domain profile

Build for scientific work

This is the concrete route for readers working with papers, software, reproducible environments, packaging, and scientific evidence.

For bioinformatics + research software Foundries for Bioinformatics Connect scientific sources to typed knowledge, executable environments, portable packaging, citation evidence, and a domain-specific correctness check. Read the domain profile

From pattern to practice

Build one

See what the pattern supplies, make the domain-specific decisions, then follow one implementation end to end.

Look something up

Reference

The implementation vocabulary, generated catalogs, design records, and canonical definitions.