Principle 03 · IMF
Integrated Modularity First
For complex, long-horizon Systems, prefer a coherent design with strong internal Component boundaries over early hard separation.
A coherent design means the System has a clear overall purpose and fits together logically. Its parts work toward the same goals without conflicting or creating unnecessary complexity.
Establish clear Components and interfaces from the beginning. Keep the System as integrated as practical so that humans and AI Agents can reason about it, verify it, and evolve it with manageable coordination cost. Introduce hard separation only when the benefits clearly outweigh the added coordination and interface costs. Hard separation includes independent ownership, strong operational or physical isolation, independent fabrication, or independent evolution.
Valid reasons for hard separation include:
- Different parts must evolve, be fabricated, or be operated at significantly different rates or under different constraints
- Failure isolation is required so that problems in one part cannot cascade
- Regulatory, safety, security, or ownership boundaries demand isolation
- Geographic, environmental, or latency constraints force physical separation
Premature hard separation increases interface complexity, coordination overhead, and verification difficulty. Start with strong modularity inside a coherent System. Separate only when the need is concrete and the trade-offs are understood.
In software, this means starting with a modular monolith (one coherent codebase with clear internal Components) rather than jumping early to microservices. Split into separate services only when independent scaling, deployment, or failure isolation becomes a real requirement.
For a floating city, this means designing the overall structure, power, life support, and modules as an integrated System with clear interfaces, rather than treating every major Subsystem as fully independent from the start. Some strong physical separations (such as watertight compartments and fire zones) are required early for safety. Beyond those necessary isolations, introduce further hard separation only when safety, environmental, or functional constraints demand it.
Applied in the Specification #
These clauses of the Normative Structural Specification name Integrated Modularity First among their grounds.