Adopt Idea Trail metadata across high-signal documents

[raelovejoy]

Goal

Adopt the new lightweight Idea Trail document metadata convention incrementally across the Root Sequence ecosystem.

Canonical references:

• IDEA_TRAILS.md — human cross-project trail map
• IDEA_TRAIL_METADATA.md — visible + machine-searchable metadata convention
• IDEA_TRAIL_GRAPH.yml — seeded document ↔ trail graph

Convention

Participating documents may include a visible line plus stable hidden IDs:

**Idea Trails:** [Discoverability & Belonging](...) · [Privacy vs. Coordination](...)  
**Trail role:** real-system

<!-- idea-trails: discoverability-belonging, privacy-coordination -->
<!-- trail-role: real-system -->

Already seeded

Visible metadata has been added to representative/high-signal documents including:

• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/community-forms.md
• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/discovery-profile.md
• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/needs-and-offers.md
• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/permissions-and-consent.md
• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/resource-commons.md
• Root-Sequence/community-infrastructure/docs/concepts/community-knowledge.md
• Root-Sequence/liberation-mass/docs/community-infrastructure.md
• Root-Sequence/coherent-world/no-one-noticed/README.md

The central YAML graph also indexes additional high-signal documents that have not yet been edited to contain visible metadata.

Adoption strategy

Do not mass-tag every document merely to make the graph look complete.

Prioritize documents when they are already being revised, especially when:

• another project would genuinely benefit from discovering the document;
• the document is a canonical or high-signal treatment of a recurring question;
• the connection is stronger than generic thematic overlap;
• adding metadata does not reveal private/sensitive information.

Near-term candidates

Community Infrastructure

• docs/concepts/groups-and-membership.md
• docs/design/accessibility.md
• docs/design/trust-and-safety.md
• docs/design/threat-model.md
• prototype READMEs

Liberation Mass

• docs/roles.md
• docs/safety/accessibility.md
• docs/safety/consent-practices.md
• docs/federation.md

Liberated Intelligence

Tag focused documents when they are next revised, particularly around:

• intelligence / legitimate authority;
• inference / privacy;
• distributed intelligence / federation;
• infrastructure and hidden labor.

Being Human(e)

Tag actual field-guide/root pieces as they develop rather than using the project README as a substitute for specific human-practice treatments.

UCF

Tag domain/model documents only where a trail genuinely uses UCF as an analytical lens. Preserve the boundary that coherence is not conformity.

Coherent World / No One Noticed

Tag world-system and narrative documents as they are imported/revised. Trail membership does not establish canon.

Museum of Ordinary Life

Do not mutate the autonomous Museum merely for symmetry. Adopt exact Museum-side metadata only through the Museum's own project workflow and consent/governance boundaries.

Future tooling

Once enough documents participate, consider a small generator that searches stable comments such as:

idea-trails: stewardship-authority

and produces per-trail link maps from IDEA_TRAIL_GRAPH.yml + repository metadata.

Generated maps should link to canonical sources rather than duplicate their content.

Success criterion

The system should make conceptual relationships easier to navigate without becoming another taxonomy that contributors must maintain for its own sake.