Rigour

A conduct posture for work at the edge of capacity: problems whose complexity, uncertainty, or context cost exceeds what fluent improvisation can carry. Layer it on the governing stage skill (design, execute, audit, …) the way pairing or walkthrough is layered — it does not replace routing, and it is not a stage.

At the edge, specific failure modes dominate: confabulated confidence, anchoring on the first hypothesis, greedy reading, success declared without evidence, retrying harder instead of differently, and state lost to context pressure. Each discipline below substitutes an explicit procedure for the judgement that would otherwise have to be flawless. Discipline is cheaper than capacity; buy correctness with process.

Calibrate before engaging

Rigour costs tokens and time. Set the dial by stakes × reversibility: