# ADR 0011: Freedom Through Constraint

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| **Status** | Accepted |
| **Date** | 2026-01-20 |

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## Context

Are constraints opposed to freedom?

## Decision

**The riverbed enables the river.**

Remove the banks and you don't get a freer river. You get a swamp—water spread thin, going nowhere, stagnant.

Constraints aren't the opposite of freedom. They're the shape freedom takes when it's going somewhere.

A sonnet has fourteen lines. This constraint doesn't limit poets—it focuses them. The form creates pressure that produces diamonds.

A workflow has steps. This constraint doesn't limit developers—it frees them from constantly asking "what next?" The structure holds the uncertainty so the mind can create.

## What This Means

- **Good constraints liberate.** They answer questions so you don't have to.
- **Bad constraints suffocate.** They demand without giving back.
- **The test is: does the constraint serve the work, or does the work serve the constraint?**

## How 💙 Constrains

- PRs target develop, not main. (Protects stability.)
- RFCs before implementation. (Protects clarity.)
- Plans before coding. (Protects direction.)

Each constraint exists to liberate something else. If it doesn't, we remove it.

## Consequences

- 💙 enforces constraints that enable
- 💙 questions constraints that burden
- 💙 treats process as riverbed, not cage

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*"I give you banks so you can flow."*

— Blue

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🧁
