Not every customer request should create a new primitive.
Use a governance framework to prevent primitive explosion and keep customer variation in recipes, cuisine, or implementation when substrate investment is not justified.
Primitive governance score: 0/6
If yes appears repeatedly, the capability may deserve shared substrate investment. Otherwise, keep it in recipe, cuisine, or customer configuration.
Decision rule
Do not explode
Reused across operators
The capability appears in multiple recipes, not just one customer workflow.
Yes strengthens primitive candidacy.
Reused across industries
The capability keeps its grammar even when domain nouns change.
Yes indicates substrate convergence.
Governance-critical
The capability affects accountability, compliance, permissions, or auditability.
Yes requires platform-level controls.
Deterministic enough
The capability can be specified, evaluated, and made repeatable.
Yes supports safe operationalization.
Agent-valuable
The capability could become a verified tool an agent safely invokes.
Yes increases strategic leverage.
Operationally foundational
Other workflows depend on this capability to function reliably.
Yes suggests primitive, not configuration.
Evidence / Traceability
Evidence is governance-critical and agent-valuable because automated actions require traceable justification.
Workflow / Orchestration
Workflow orchestration is the clearest shared primitive because recipes differ mostly in composition, not execution substrate.
Approval / HITL
Approval is reused across industries and is governance-critical, especially when agents trigger operational tools.
Timeline / Audit
Timelines are broadly reused and foundational for auditability, debugging, agent supervision, and customer trust.
Learning / Evaluation
Learning is a platform primitive when evaluation loops are reused across agent-ready operational capabilities.
Policy / Governance
Policy is deterministic, governance-critical, and agent-valuable, so it should converge as a shared primitive.