> "BASB, single source of truth, and a Shared Kernel feel like the same idea at different sizes - is there a layer above the techniques?"
^problem
Every knowledge technique is pitched at one scale - personal note-taking, team wikis, organisational data architecture - so the same underlying move is reinvented and renamed at each level, and the relationship between the versions is lost.
## Resolution
> A scale-free knowledge pattern is an underlying move for organising knowledge that recurs self-similarly across scales - personal, organisation, and the cross-domain boundary - with a different implementation at each altitude.
^definition
Centralisation is one: [[Build a Second Brain]] (personal), [[Single source of truth]] (organisation), and [[Shared Kernel]] (the cross-domain boundary) are the same move - pull commonly-needed knowledge into one owned place - at three altitudes. The node attributes, edge-properties, and methods elsewhere in this vault all turn out to be expressions of a small set of these patterns. The dictionary below is that set.
## Dictionary
Each row is one scale-free pattern; the columns are its implementations by altitude. The opposing pairs (Centralise↔Federate, Link↔Decouple) mark this as a pattern *language*, not a list.
| Pattern | Personal | Organisation | Cross-domain edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| **[[Centralization pattern\|Centralise]]** - one source of truth | [[Build a Second Brain]] | [[Single source of truth]] | [[Shared Kernel]] |
| **[[Publication pattern\|Publish]]** - open interface to many | digital garden | internal wiki / API | [[Open Host Service]] |
| **[[Standardization pattern\|Standardise]]** - shared language / schema | naming + tags | glossary / ontology | [[Published Language]] |
| **[[Linking pattern\|Link]]** - connect into a graph | [[Zettelkästen]] | knowledge graph | cross-domain links |
| **[[Federation pattern\|Federate]]** - domain-owned + contracts | apps + links | [[Data Mesh]] | [[Customer-Supplier]] |
| **[[Buffering pattern\|Buffer]]** - isolate the incompatible | — | adapter | [[Anti-corruption Layer]] |
| **[[Decoupling pattern\|Decouple]]** - deliberately separate | work / personal split | modular teams | [[Separate Ways]] |
| **[[Stewardship pattern\|Own]]** - name a steward | you | [[RACI]] | edge ownership |
| **[[Capture pattern\|Capture]]** - externalise the tacit | fleeting notes | [[Decision record]] | — |
| **[[Distillation pattern\|Distill]]** - compress to essence | progressive summarisation | playbooks | — |
^dictionary
## How the patterns map onto existing frameworks
No single framework catalogues these; each established body of work - gathered in [[Knowledge management frameworks]] - covers a slice:
| Pattern(s) | Where it is theorised |
|---|---|
| Centralise / Federate | [[Data Mesh]], [[Domain-driven design]] context mapping |
| Publish / Standardise | [[FAIR principles]], [[Published Language]] |
| Capture / Externalise | [[SECI model]] (externalisation) |
| Own / promise to supply | [[Promise Theory]] |
| Recursion across scales (the meta-pattern) | [[Viable System Model]], [[Pattern Language]] |
The recursion *itself* - that a pattern reproduces at every altitude - is the part no knowledge framework documents. [[Viable System Model]] models it for organisations and [[Pattern Language]] supplies the method for writing patterns that reference each other across scales, but neither is a knowledge-pattern dictionary. Assembling one is open ground.