Practitioner-oriented articulations of each methodology within Harmonic Design. Each paper provides the full theory, worked examples, and validation criteria.
Core Framework
The foundational papers covering the unified framework and its four pillars: backend architecture, frontend architecture, testing strategy, and project planning.
Harmonic Design: A Unified Software Engineering Framework
The master paper. Describes the organizing principle, the structural isomorphism connecting the four pillars, the communication and state-flow rules that hold universally, and the emergent properties that arise when all four are practiced together. Start here.
Volatility-Based Decomposition in Software Architecture
How to identify volatility, align components to volatility boundaries, apply component roles and communication rules, and validate architectural decisions over time. Includes the complete role definitions, illustrative examples, and the decomposition process.
Experience-Based Decomposition
The full decomposition framework for interface architecture. Covers the three-tier hierarchy (Experiences, Flows, Interactions), the four axes of interface volatility, communication rules, configuration-driven composition, and application across product contexts.
Boundary-Driven Testing
Maps the test spiral to the structural models defined by VBD and EBD. Covers test profiles by tier, mock placement as architectural evidence, the three integration seams, and how testing difficulty diagnoses structural problems.
Project Design: The Design of Projects
Activity inventorying, network construction, critical path analysis, multi-level estimation, schedule compression, objective risk quantification, earned value validation, staffing principles, staged delivery, and structured decision-making.
AI
Papers covering the architecture of AI agent systems and the application of Harmonic Design principles to LLM-based software.
Compiled Context Runtime
A stateless orchestration layer for AI agent systems. Covers the five primitives, process definitions, compiled context injection, memory and context chains, composable knowledge packages, and token economics.
Swarm Architecture
Bounded parallel agent execution extending the CCR. Covers swarm containment rules, convergence protocols, distributed execution topologies, and the compiled context boundary as a security primitive for federated agent systems.