Naming Standards

How things are named describes the meta of the matter and it is the meta of the matter that matters most.

The hardest problem in engineering is naming things.

This page is the canonical reference for terminology across Dreamineering. Use these terms consistently to reduce confusion and enable coordination between humans and AI agents.

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Why Naming Standards Matter

• Searchability — Type a prefix, find all related content
• Consistency — Same term means the same thing everywhere
• Scalability — Standards work with 10 files or 10,000 files
• Context compression — Names carry maximum information density
• Composability — Enable coordination at edges
• AI-readability — Agents can parse and act on consistent naming

Without consistency, improvement is guesswork.

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Operations Terminology

How work gets documented. Four levels from strategic to tactical:

STANDARD (Why)  →  PROCESS (What)  →  WORKFLOW (How)  →  CHECKLIST (Verify)

Term	Question	Scope	Changes	Example
Standard	Why does this matter?	Organization-wide rules	Rarely	Brand Guidelines, Security Policy
Process	What needs to happen?	End-to-end outcome	Periodically	Marketing, Onboarding, Sales
Workflow	How do we do this activity?	Step-by-step execution	Regularly	Article Copywriting, Lead Qualification
Checklist	Did we do it right?	Verification	As needed	Quality Gate, Pre-publish Check

How They Nest

STANDARD: Marketing Principles
    └── PROCESS: Content Marketing
            └── WORKFLOW: Article Copywriting
                    └── CHECKLIST: Final Quality Gate

Disambiguation

Use This	Not This	Reason
Standard	Policy, Guideline, Rule	"Standard" implies measurable compliance
Process	System, Function	"Process" implies flow from trigger to outcome
Workflow	SOP, Procedure, Playbook	"Workflow" is tool-agnostic and clear
Checklist	Task list, To-do	"Checklist" implies verification, not work

Special Terms

Term	Definition	When to Use
Protocol	Rules governing interaction between systems	API specs, data exchange formats, governance rules
Playbook	Collection of related workflows	"Everything you need to run [function]"
Practice	Informal pattern not yet documented	Capture as workflow when proven valuable
Work Chart	Capability-to-demand mapping	Who does what (separate from how)

Full definitions: Process Optimisation

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Content Terminology

How site content is organized.

Directory Structure

Directory	Purpose	Content Type
/docs/	Published documentation	Evergreen reference, frameworks, guides
/meta/	Published insights	Time-stamped articles, predictions, reflections
/.agent-work/	Working files	Drafts, research, planning (not version controlled)
/.claude/	Agent configuration	Skills, commands, context

Page Types

Type	Location	Purpose	Frontmatter
Index	*/index.md	Category overview, navigation	sidebar_position: 1
Guide	/docs/*/	How-to, reference	Standard tags
Workflow	/docs/business/*/	Step-by-step process	Activity tags
Article	/meta/YYYY-MM-DD-*.md	Dated insight	Date, authors, tags
Profile	/docs/agency/mastermind/	Person/entity analysis	Profile tags

Frontmatter Standards

Required fields:

---
title: Page Title
sidebar_label: Short Label
tags:
  - PrimaryCategory
  - SecondaryCategory
---

Optional fields:

description: SEO description (150-160 chars)
sidebar_position: 1
authors: [matt]
date: 2024-12-14

Tag Conventions

• Use existing tags before creating new ones
• Capitalize first letter: Marketing not marketing
• Singular form: Workflow not Workflows
• No spaces: BOaaS not BOa aS

Core tags: Systems, Process, Workflow, Standards, BOaaS, Marketing, Platform, AI, Crypto, DePIN

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File & Folder Naming

Folders

Pattern: kebab-case

✅ docs/business/growth/marketing/
✅ docs/systems/process-optimisation/

❌ docs/Business/Growth/Marketing/     (no capitals)
❌ docs/business/growth/Marketing/     (inconsistent)
❌ docs/business_growth_marketing/     (no underscores)

Files

Pattern: kebab-case.md or kebab-case.mdx

✅ marketing-article-copywriting.md
✅ process-optimisation.md
✅ naming-standards.md

❌ MarketingArticleCopywriting.md     (no PascalCase)
❌ marketing_article_copywriting.md   (no underscores)
❌ marketing article copywriting.md   (no spaces)

Index Files

Pattern: index.md or index.mdx for category pages

✅ docs/systems/index.md
✅ docs/business/growth/marketing/index.md

❌ docs/systems/systems.md            (use index.md)
❌ docs/systems/README.md             (use index.md)

Dated Content

Pattern: YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md

✅ meta/2024-12-14-the-amplifying-wave.md
✅ meta/2024-12-10-naming-matters.md

❌ meta/the-amplifying-wave.md        (missing date)
❌ meta/14-12-2024-the-wave.md        (wrong date format)

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Skill Naming

For .claude/skills/ directories.

Pattern: {category}-{capability} or {verb}-{noun}

✅ design-system
✅ question-led-writing
✅ building-landing-pages
✅ tracking-predictions

❌ designSystem                       (use kebab-case)
❌ design_system                      (no underscores)
❌ ds                                 (too abbreviated)

Skill Categories

Prefix	Domain	Examples
design-*	Visual/UI	design-system, design-audit
building-*	Construction	building-landing-pages
writing-*	Content creation	question-led-writing
researching-*	Investigation	researching-depin, researching-business-ideas
tracking-*	Monitoring	tracking-predictions
analyzing-*	Analysis	analyzing-industries

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Word List

Canonical terms and their alternatives.

Approved Terms

Use	Instead Of	Reason
Workflow	SOP, Procedure, Playbook (for single activity)	Tool-agnostic, clear
Standard	Policy, Guideline, Rule	Implies measurable
Process	System (for work documentation)	Implies flow
Checklist	Task list, To-do list	Implies verification
Work Chart	Org Chart, RACI	Capability-focused

Discouraged Terms

Avoid	Use Instead	Reason
SOP	Workflow	Industry jargon
Procedure	Workflow	Ambiguous
Policy (for work docs)	Standard	"Policy" implies HR/legal
Guideline	Standard or Workflow	Too weak
Best Practice	Standard or Workflow	Vague, undocumented
Protocol (for work steps)	Workflow	Reserve for system interaction

AI Writing Terms

Avoid	Use Instead	Reason
"dive into"	"explore", "examine"	Cliché
"unveil"	"show", "reveal"	Cliché
"realm"	"area", "domain"	Cliché
"leverage" (as verb)	"use"	Jargon
"utilize"	"use"	Unnecessary complexity
"in order to"	"to"	Wordy

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Naming Patterns by Context

Marketing Activities

Pattern: marketing-{activity-type}-{specific}

✅ marketing-article-copywriting.md
✅ marketing-activity-seo.md
✅ marketing-social-media-playbook/

❌ copywriting.md                     (missing category)
❌ article-marketing.md               (wrong order)

Business Functions

Pattern: {function}/{sub-function}/

✅ docs/business/growth/marketing/
✅ docs/business/growth/sales/
✅ docs/business/accounting/

❌ docs/marketing/                     (missing business context)

Framework Pages

Pattern: {framework-name}.md or {framework-name}/index.md

✅ docs/the-game/index.md
✅ docs/systems/thought-audit.md
✅ docs/work/index.md

❌ docs/the-game.md                   (use folder + index for major frameworks)

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Search Optimization

Prefix Patterns

Design names so prefix search works:

"marketing-"     → All marketing activities
"workflow-"      → All workflow documents
"researching-"   → All research skills
"docs/business/" → All business documentation

Grep-Friendly Naming

Names should be unique enough to grep:

# Find all workflow documents
grep -r "Workflow" docs/ --include="*.md"

# Find all marketing activities
ls docs/business/growth/marketing/marketing-activities/

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Change Log

Track terminology changes here.

Date	Change	Reason
2024-12	Established operations terminology hierarchy	Standardize process documentation
2024-12	Created naming standards document	Single source of truth for terminology

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Context

• Process Optimisation — How to improve processes (uses this terminology)
• Work Charts — Who does what (capability mapping)
• Systems — Taxonomy overview
• Marketing Activities — Reference implementation