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  • Status: accepted · Date: 2026-07-17 · Deciders: Davor Runje

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Context

We started with two levels (hypothesis within a paper; paper within a portfolio). The author then asked to incorporate the PhD thesis and to track progress toward it, and to keep the structure uniform across levels.

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Decision drivers

  • Uniformity across levels reduces cognitive load (the author’s stated priority).
  • Thesis-by-publication is a papers→thesis nesting (kappa binds them).
  • But a thesis is not “explored” in bulk — there is one, framed once.

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Considered options

  1. Thesis as a third, top, optional level — a partial mirror (synthesis + progress + defensibility; framing degenerate).
  2. Full symmetric third level with a real thesis-exploration flywheel.
  3. No thesis level; just a narrative doc + dashboard over the portfolio.

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Decision

Option 1. Thesis = optional top level; thesis skill (framing + synthesis); roll-up target is narrative coverage of aims, not paper count; monograph is the degenerate case. Cross-repo aggregation out of scope (ADR-0018).

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Consequences

  • Honest asymmetry documented (no high-throughput thesis exploration).
  • A repo that isn’t a thesis simply omits the top level.

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Rejected alternatives

  • Full symmetric flywheel — false symmetry; there is one thesis.
  • No level — can’t assemble the kappa or gate defensibility.
meta-spec §3.1; sub-spec 1 §2.5; digest thesis-and-progress-tracking.md.