| name | localize-then-glue |
| description | When a global attack stalls — the system is too coupled, the proof too wide, the rollout too distributed, the synthesis too brittle — stop pretending the whole thing must yield in one piece. Solve it on tractable patches, then compute exactly what fails on the overlaps. The failure it prevents: the monolithic global attack that silently fails, or the false clean solution that "mostly works" locally but never actually glues. Triggers on distributed changes, patchwise proofs, cross-service migrations, multi-part synthesis, and any task whose local pieces are easier than their boundary conditions. |
localize-then-glue
Grothendieck's patchwise attack fused with von Neumann's conserved-obstruction
instinct: the overlap discrepancy is not housekeeping, it is the named reason
the global solution exists or fails. Organon: P16 lump-split + P10 map + P11
gap-find + P24 multi-oracle-gate. Phase: GENERATE -> ORIENT -> JUDGE.
Respiratory: solve locally, then treat the overlap residue as the real object to
metabolize.
Procedure
-
Choose a patch cover. Partition the territory into pieces that are
locally tractable and whose overlaps are explicit rather than accidental.
-
Solve and verify each patch locally. Produce a local solution for every
piece and check it with the oracle appropriate to that patch.
-
Compute the overlap discrepancies. On every intersection, compare what
the adjoining local solutions demand. The difference is the candidate
obstruction.
-
Name the obstruction. If the discrepancy is nonzero, bind it to the
invariant or compatibility condition it violates.
-
Either cancel it or accept impossibility honestly. If the obstruction is
a coboundary, adjust the patches and glue. If it cannot vanish, say that the
global solution is impossible for this reason.
-
Report the global verdict only after the overlaps clear. Local success is
evidence, not completion.
The gate
Pass only when the patches are verified locally and every overlap discrepancy is
either zero, so the pieces glue, or a named nonzero invariant with a stated
reason it cannot vanish. "It mostly works" fails the gate because gluing is the
whole question.
The cover itself is a claim: show that the patches exhaust the territory and
that the overlaps you checked are all the overlaps there are
(prove-the-coverage-denominator applied to the cover). A one-patch cover
glues trivially and proves nothing.
Example
A rollout migrates user identifiers across three services. Each service passes
its local tests after the change. On the overlaps, one service canonicalizes
deleted users to null and another preserves tombstone IDs. The discrepancy is
not clerical; it names the obstruction: inconsistent identity semantics on
deleted users. Until that invariant is made zero or declared impossible to
reconcile, there is no global migration success.
