The Principia Machina/GTP/Guide/2 Running a decision pause

The Principia Machina: map
Reading the diagrams Structure key Process key Definition of terms Roles
Reading by audience Start here: the walk through The operator's guide Tutorial: create a UUID Workspace Container (UWC) Public Recorder inputs Sponsors: your first agent
The specification Contents: parts, tables, diagrams TPS 0.5.0 (declared 2026-10-03, revision 8; machine-optimized text) Decisions (the foundations record, one line each)

The operator's guide, page 2 of 4. It assumes the walk. Each page opens with its diagram, states its purpose and scope, gives the procedure, works one example, and links what governs it. The worked examples are drawn from the Claude instance; the rules they follow are GTP's, which governs wherever this guide and it differ.

The Principia Machina/Diagrams/P03 The decision pause From a conflict to a resolution, with the person in the middle of it. (diagram page.)

Purpose

Answer an interruption in a way that actually settles the question, and recognise one that cannot be answered as it stands.

Scope

Reading an interruption, checking it is well formed, answering it, and what happens when your answer adds something the question did not anticipate. Not covered: how the agent decides that something needs asking at all, which the walk describes.

Procedure

1. Find the banner. It names where the interruption arose and which items it carries, and it is written to be searched for later, so it is also how you find this moment again in a month.
2. Check each item is complete before you answer it. It should name which kind of question it is, which rules or facts are pulling against each other, what is at stake if it goes wrong, and it should end in labelled options.
3. Check the options are whole. Each one should be something that could be carried out as written, not a direction of travel.
4. Work out what the answer has to fix. A question about naming something is never only about the word: there is also what it covers and how it sits beside names already in use. If the option you prefer leaves one of those open, say so rather than choosing it.
5. Answer compactly. Naming the item and the option is enough, and a list of answers may mix the obvious notations.
6. Supply your own option when none of the offered ones is right. You are not limited to the menu, and an answer that invents a better arrangement is a legitimate answer.
7. Expect the item to be reopened if your answer adds a constraint, together with a statement of which part of the original question was missing.
8. Expect every answer to be visibly applied before the round finishes, rather than agreed and then lost.

Worked example

This branch asked how the page addresses in this section should be numbered, and offered three arrangements. None was taken. The answer supplied a fourth: numbers are assigned once and never changed, a page inserted later takes a trailing decimal at its place in the order, and a wholesale renumbering is a deliberate act done on purpose when the decimals become unwieldy. That answer keeps reading order in the title and still renames nothing, which no offered option managed. The item closed on it, and the numbering you see in this section is its result.

Governing sections: PMP MRG, PMP FRONT-END CONTRACT.

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Guide contents: the section contents. Previous: Installing and verifying an instruction set. Next: Vetting an input and handling a detection.