Food, soil, and seed
Map local seasons, seed provenance, growing knowledge, food access, storage practices, cooking constraints, and trusted agricultural authorities.
Artifact: a seasonal, locally tested food-continuity guide.Short enough to carry · strong enough to restore
TRANSITION FIELD GUIDES
A field guide turns a fragile chain of memory into instructions another person can find, question, print, test, correct, and use when the original system is gone.
Instructions through the fire
WRITE FOR THE PERSON WHO ARRIVES AFTER THE EXPERT, THE SERVER, AND THE INSTITUTION ARE GONE.
Do not write as if the reader shares your equipment, language, mobility, climate, credentials, or network access. Name what the guide assumes. Preserve qualified authority where the stakes are medical, structural, electrical, legal, or otherwise life-critical.
ONE TASK.
ONE VERSION.
ONE TEST.
ONE PATH TO CORRECTION.
Guide library
SEVEN CONTINUITY FIELDS.
These are authoring frames, not claims that one universal instruction fits every place.
Water and sanitation
Map official sources, access points, responsible utilities, sanitation routes, accessibility, current advisories, test authority, and failure contacts.
Artifact: a dated local access-and-authority map—not improvised medical or treatment claims.Shelter, transport, and access
Map accessible spaces, weather constraints, public routes, mutual-aid contacts, repair capabilities, mobility needs, and lawful occupancy resources.
Artifact: an accessible continuity directory with a correction date.Medicine and care
Preserve current public-health guidance, licensed local resources, care networks, disability knowledge, communication needs, supply dependencies, and version dates.
Artifact: a source-linked care pathway that never impersonates individualized medical advice.Communication and power
Document offline contact trees, accessible alerts, charging dependencies, public frequencies where lawful, printed directories, source code, and restoration tests.
Artifact: a tested communication plan that does not expose private homes or vulnerable people.Memory, language, and learning
Preserve primary sources, teaching sequences, translation, cultural context, checksums, print copies, and people able to demonstrate the knowledge.
Artifact: a lesson and archive another person can restore.Councils, cooperatives, and repair
Record rotating roles, agendas, decisions, accounts, conflicts, appeal, correction, ownership, succession, and Exit.
Artifact: a tested public protocol that remains challengeable under pressure.Anatomy of a field guide
THE READER MUST SEE THE SOURCE AND THE EDGE.
Every guide carries its own limits.
Scope
One task, place, audience, language, access condition, and explicit non-goals.
Authority
Named sources, qualifications, jurisdiction, date, version, uncertainty, and permissions.
Use
Required materials, ordered steps, visible stop conditions, accessibility alternatives, and escalation routes.
Proof
Test date, tester, result, known failures, correction route, next review, and an offline copy.
Do not publish unverified medical, structural, electrical, chemical, weapons, or hazardous-operational instructions as trusted guidance. Preserve the qualified source and the date; when authority changes, the guide changes.
Starter guide library
BEGIN WITH TASKS THAT TEACH THE METHOD WITHOUT COUNTERFEITING EXPERTISE.
These bounded guides can be authored and tested locally now. They preserve sources, consent, access, failure, and correction without improvising life-critical advice.
Restore a small offline archive
Select a non-sensitive collection and manifest. Make independent copies on two suitable media. Give the manifest to a person without access to the original. Ask them to locate, open, identify, and integrity-check every item. Record missing context, failed files, inaccessible formats, elapsed effort, corrections, and the next test.
Verify a published file
Preserve the file name, source route, date, declared digest method, and published checksum. Use a trusted local checksum tool, compare the complete value, record match or mismatch, and preserve the result beside the file. A matching checksum proves byte identity with the declared value, not truth or safety of the content.
Run an accessible accountability meeting
Publish purpose, accessible route, decision method, rotating roles, agenda, and Exit. Open with access needs. Preserve decisions, spending, conflicts, dissent, owners by temporary role, deadlines, corrections, and an accessible offline copy. Ask someone absent to reconstruct what happened from the record.
Preserve an oral history with consent
Agree on purpose, audience, attribution, restrictions, correction, withdrawal, custody, and review before recording. Preserve the recording with transcript, language, date, context, interviewer role, consent state, and disputed passages. A story remains the speaker’s; custody does not become ownership.
Transfer one practical skill
Bound the task and prerequisites. Demonstrate it. Let the learner practice with support, then repeat without the original teacher directing every step. Record result, uncertainty, access barriers, equipment dependence, corrections, and whether the learner can now explain the task to someone else.
Build a correctable public resource directory
Include only public or deliberately consented services. Record coarse service area, public contact, access information, source, verification date, limits, and correction route. Test a sample without exposing private clients or vulnerable locations. Expire entries that cannot be reverified.
A GUIDE IS A PROMISE MADE TO A STRANGER:
YOU WILL SEE WHAT I KNEW, WHAT I ASSUMED, WHAT FAILED, AND WHEN TO STOP.
Guide lifecycle
EVERY GUIDE MUST SHOW WHETHER IT IS READY, BROKEN, OR DEAD.
Version is not decoration. It tells the next reader which authority and test still stand.
Draft
Still being written. Not trusted for use and not counted as capacity.
Source reviewed
Authorities, rights, jurisdiction, assumptions, uncertainty, and required qualifications have been checked.
Locally tested
A named bounded task was attempted under recorded conditions; success, failure, access, and stop points remain visible.
Released
The current version, date, intended audience, source set, test state, offline copy, and correction route are public.
Corrected
A new version identifies exactly what changed and sends the correction toward known copies and dependents.
Expired
The review date, source authority, jurisdiction, or operating conditions passed. Do not treat it as current guidance.
Retired
The guide remains as dated evidence but directs readers to its replacement or records why the task should no longer be performed.
From guide to proof
A GUIDE COUNTS ONLY AFTER ITS CLAIMS SURVIVE THE RIGHT REVIEW.
State qualifications, test conditions, stop conditions, failures, accessibility, and expiration. Life-critical guidance requires appropriately qualified human review.
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