Flow Engineering

How do you turn a picture into a product?

OUTCOME → VALUE STREAM → DEPENDENCIES → CAPABILITIES → A&ID
   │           │               │              │           │
   ▼           ▼               ▼              ▼           ▼
 Contracts   Processes      Sequencing     Readiness    Orchestration

The same way factories get built — draw it first. P&IDs became steel and concrete. Flow maps become working systems. The drawing IS the engineering.

The Maps

Five maps. Five questions. In sequence. Each produces inputs for the next.

Map	Question	Produces
Outcome Map	What does success look like?	Domain contracts, success measures
Value Stream Map	Where's the waste?	Use cases, repositories, adapters
Dependency Map	What must happen first?	Composition, task ordering
Capability Map	What can we do?	Generators, skills, work charts
A&ID	How do agents orchestrate?	Agent configs, feedback loops

4 Key Maps = WHAT to build
A&ID       = HOW agents work together to build it

The Capstone

The Agent & Instrument Diagram extends P&ID discipline to AI and Crypto systems.

Element	Role	Domain
Agents (AG-XXX)	Actors that take action	Claude, humans, DePIN
Instruments (QC/VC/FC)	Sensors that measure	Smart contracts, oracles
Feedback Loops	Data improving agents	VVFL, tokenomics, governance

Products Loop

Flow engineering connects to every dimension of product development:

Dimension	Connection	How Maps Help
Jobs To Be Done	Outcome Map IS a job analysis	"What does success look like?" = "What job are we hired for?"
AI Products	A&ID IS agent orchestration	Define evals, build loops, measure distributions
Product Design	Value Stream maps the design audit	Rendering, visual, responsive, interaction — in sequence
Software	Capability Map reveals build vs buy	Core capabilities build, generic capabilities buy

The Outcome Map starts where JTBD starts — what progress is the customer trying to make? The A&ID ends where AI Products begins — how do agents deliver outcomes in a feedback loop?

Maps to Execution

Maps don't produce documentation. They produce the inputs for plan templates and generators.

Map	Plan Phase	Generator Input	What It Produces
Outcome Map	Explore	Domain contracts	Ports, DTOs, entities, acceptance criteria
Value Stream Map	Define Types	Schema definitions	Repository interfaces, test expectations
Dependency Map	Write Test Specs	Ordering constraints	Failing tests that define "done"
Capability Map	Build	Generator selection	Scaffolded code in correct layer order
A&ID	Orchestrate	Agent configs	Plan templates, feedback loops

Map the flow → Encode as types → Generate test specs → Scaffold implementation → Validate outcomes
     │                │                    │                       │                      │
     ▼                ▼                    ▼                       ▼                      ▼
  Exploration     Contracts that       Failing tests           Generators enforce     Did outcomes match
  produces        the compiler         define what             correct layer          what exploration
  contracts       enforces             "done" means            order automatically    predicted?

Each map iteration improves the generators. The Capability Map tracks which patterns are codified (generator exists) versus manual (hand-coded). When a manual pattern appears twice, it becomes a generator. When a generator exists, using it is mandatory. The map IS the generator improvement tracker.

Plan templates compose from multiple sources — a single feature plan might derive tasks from entity commissioning, UI component, and e2e testing templates simultaneously. Each template contributes its gates (TDD enforcement, CDD file limits, security triads, proof commands). The plan inherits all gates from all templates. Cross-team task routing (meta, intelligence, UI, platform engineering) emerges from which templates contribute tasks.

Two Dimensions

Every map has two layers:

Layer	What It Captures
Dream	Future state — what we're building
Engineering	Current state — what exists
Gap	What we must build to close the distance

Fill maps with REALITY (evidence, not hopes). Keep them FRESH (stale maps are worse than no maps).

PLANS ARE WORTHLESS, PLANNING IS ESSENTIAL.
GOOD PLANNING ALWAYS STARTS WITH MAPPING REALITY.

Picture the dream. Map reality. Close the gap.

Context

• Pictures — The tools that make thinking visible
• Type-First Development — What this looks like at the keyboard
• Testing Strategy — Proving each layer honors the contracts
• Products — Great products deliver great outcomes
• Process Optimisation — Improve the flow
• Flow Engineering (Steve Pereira) — Origin methodology
• Flow Collective — Community of practice