Methods for solving difficult problems, expanding what you can do, and continuing development.
FPF Library brings together the First Principles Framework (FPF Core) and domain frameworks for people, AI agents, teams and organizations. It offers ways to reason, investigate, design, coordinate work, learn and improve the methods used to do those things. Each method is explained as a pattern: a recognizable difficulty, the conditions in which it arises, a way to obtain a useful result, worked cases and limits.
The Library is developing as a methodology of open-ended development. A result can make a previously unattainable problem approachable; working on that problem can expand both your capabilities and your ways of developing them. The aim is to keep that continuation possible, without a predetermined final level. This includes noticing limitations that have not yet become explicit problems, using existing knowledge, constructing missing methods, and passing useful capabilities and knowledge to others.
You can also use one method for one calculation, design, decision or learning need and stop there. A completed task, a new procedure or learning a known method does not by itself establish continuing development.
Start using the Library · Domain frameworks · FPF Core
Read the Library Architectural Reference. It explains why general methods belong to Core, why some disciplines form Suites while others have standalone frameworks, and how their contributions work together. Use it to get an overview, understand an apparent overlap or judge a proposed change. It is the explanation of the Library’s design, not a catalogue of filenames.
For a familiar task, you can go straight to a suitable method below.
You do not need to read the Library from beginning to end. Bring a situation, the result you need and what currently prevents you from obtaining it. Choose an entry below, or search the publications for the difficulty in ordinary and technical language.
| What you are trying to do | Where to begin |
|---|---|
| Find a way to obtain a result when the familiar answer is insufficient | Find and develop a way to obtain a result (FPF C.39). It connects existing answers, missing constructions and the use that needs the result. |
| Develop your own, a team's or an organization's ability to continue beyond its present limits | Construct and continue open-ended development (FPF C.40.OD), together with the domain methods needed for the actual change. |
| Design, acquire, integrate or maintain a functioning system | Engineering. |
| Make direction, promises, resources and collective work fit together | Management. |
| Obtain or check a mathematical or physical answer, model, algorithm or notation | Foundational Thinking. Apply the needed method yourself or have a capable specialist or AI apply it; learning to perform it yourself is a separate choice. |
| Help a person acquire or retain a capability for later work | Human Capability Engineering. |
| Investigate a question, design a decision, explain material or work in another field | Further domain frameworks, including research, decision design, explanation and narrativization. |
Before applying a method, read Using FPF Library. It explains how to find a useful contribution, read its conditions, connect it to the rest of the work and distinguish a source citation from a direction to apply another method. An adequate known answer can be used directly; a larger question may need several connected methods. Their order in a file is not an instruction to perform them all.
Suppose a team can deliver its current product, but a more demanding order is beyond its capabilities. Buying a specialist's result might meet the immediate need. Learning to produce it would change what the team can do. Learning how to recognize the next limitation, obtain or invent a needed method and organize its acquisition would change how the team can continue developing. These are different results, with different evidence.
The Library helps connect them without requiring the same arrangement everywhere. A person working with an AI, several collaborating teams and a company with a development office need different domain methods and allocations of work, resources and authority. An office is one possible arrangement, not a prerequisite for development.
The general methods are in Core: connect development work (C.40.OD), connect a method, the capability to perform it and the conditions for its use (C.40.JD), and continue from a result to new attainable problems (C.40.NP). The DPFs supply the particular mechanisms of learning, research, engineering, management and other practices. Developing a method, changing an agent's capability and actually performing work remain distinct contributions.
FPF Core contains 397 patterns in 17.617 million characters. It supplies transdisciplinary concepts and methods, including methodological work and open-ended development. 33 Domain Principle Frameworks (DPFs) supply subject-specific methods: 23 belong to four Suites, and ten have their own files directly in the DPF catalogue.
A DPF describes one field through a connected pattern language. A Suite describes a composite discipline through its constituent fields and their relations. An Architectural Reference explains how the relevant language is arranged and why: within a framework, across a Suite, or across the Library.
| DPF Suite | Working subject | DPFs | Patterns | Text, M characters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | Designing, realizing, changing and maintaining systems; knowledge access and semantic integration. | 4 | 92 | 2.541 |
| Management | Direction, commitments, operations, resources, markets, communities and organizational change. | 12 | 182 | 4.941 |
| Foundational Thinking | Mathematical and physical accounts, models, algorithms and usable notation. | 5 | 70 | 1.951 |
| Human Capability Engineering | Human learning and somatic change, connected to capability in later work. | 2 | 34 | 1.209 |
The DPF catalogue lists the ten further frameworks and opens each Suite's files. Suite totals sum their constituent framework texts; separate Suite References and README pages are excluded. Character counts include spaces and original line breaks. Counts describe the available material, not how much you must read before using it.
The Library does not claim to exhaust the disciplines it covers: the current Human Capability Engineering Suite, for example, develops learning and somatic contributions, not all methods concerning a human being.
Read Core on fpf.tools, or choose a domain publication and open the required pattern. The first method links above open that reading service. GitHub cannot display the complete Core and may truncate large DPFs; a link to a valid heading does not remove that limit.
For the source, open the Core Markdown file and its history or download Core as raw Markdown. Framework tables on these pages pair online reading with a Markdown source link. On fpf.tools, Copy and source identifies the repository edition behind the displayed passage. Check source editions and update status when the version matters; the service may lag behind GitHub. Search and MCP connection instructions provide other ways to reach the material.
For local use, download or clone this repository. Keep FPF-Spec.md, FPF-LIBRARY-REFERENCE.md, USING-FPF.md, the licensing files and DPFs/ in their existing arrangement. A selected subset is also usable: include the actual supplying frameworks needed by your question, not just links to unavailable files. Using FPF Library explains access and selection.
Give the assistant access to the full relevant texts, your actual situation, constraints and observations. Put this instruction in the project settings or instruction file the agent actually reads, replacing fpf/ with your location:
Use FPF Library from
fpf/. Before applying its methods, readfpf/USING-FPF.mdand follow its guidance. Help obtain the result our work needs. Explain the reasoning in our working language, identify the patterns used, and distinguish source claims, assumptions and missing evidence.
Then ask a concrete question. For example: “Our team can deliver the current product but not the proposed variant. Help compare acquiring an external result, developing our capability and changing the offering. What information could change that choice?”
An assistant can retrieve methods, calculate, compare alternatives, draft and challenge reasoning. Its fluent answer does not establish an observed fact, a new capability, permission, a commitment or an implemented system. Check the output against the actual work, evidence and applicable decision authority. FPF Library is a method library, not an agent runtime or a grant of autonomous authority. It is intended for human use as well as AI-assisted work, across physical, organizational, intellectual and embodied practices.
README pages help you choose; full patterns teach the methods and state their conditions. Read the exact explanation when a recommendation matters. A maintained account of useful approaches can include competing schools, failures and limits; neither the newest standard nor one successful example establishes universal applicability.
For a precise reference, retain the complete PatternID or section address and enough context to identify the publication. Using FPF Library: resolve a portable reference explains how this works across files, search and MCP. You need not learn document codes before choosing what to read.
For an issue or proposed improvement, identify the publication and passage, the working situation, what failed or remains unavailable, and the change you propose. Use the relevant Architectural Reference to understand the current design. The broader FPF ecosystem can include independently authored DPFs, local frameworks (LPFs), guides, tools and services; this repository publishes FPF Library.
Anatoly Levenchuk, with AI-agent assistance. The publications are usable and continuously revised: an “eternal alpha.” That describes continued development, not a guarantee of suitability for every use. Cite the publication, edition and pattern when their identity matters.
Original framework content is licensed under CC BY 4.0. See licensing terms for attribution, third-party material and software boundaries. Sharing or adapting licensed text requires the applicable attribution and change notices. Independently authored DPFs and LPFs may use their authors' chosen licenses; using the methods or publication form does not by itself impose CC BY.
Levenchuk, Anatoly. FPF Library.
GitHub repository: https://github.com/ailev/FPF
For a specific claim or method, add the publication, edition and complete PatternID.