Traceability over dense documentation.
Value lives in the links between thin, richly connected artifacts.
The unit of value is the link.
Dense documentation defeats its own purpose. A 40-page Word document describes a project in exhaustive detail, yet it cannot tell you why a status is red or which decision accepted the risk that caused it, so you read everything to find anything.
Traceability replaces density with linkage. Each thin artifact (a charter, a RAID entry, a decision record) carries a stable ID and typed references to the others, so a reader can walk from any status to its root cause in five hops without opening a deck.
The thread in practice.
Does every requirement get tested? Every hop below is a typed link that CI checks on every pull request.
The schema enforces this.
Every requirement is an item with a stable ID and typed links, so the lineage is a queryable graph that CI checks. Ask "which requirements have no test?" and the tool answers.
## Product Requirements - **AUR-PR-014** (traces: AUR-BR-001): the product shall provide a self-serve onboarding flow. ## Acceptance Criteria - **AUR-AC-001** (verifies: AUR-PR-014): a new customer completes setup with no support ticket created.