**Bead document** from Bead: Paving The Cowpath · [canonical source](https://redfish.acequia.io/guerin/.agents/43d0d033-130e-4f97-9177-f1b3f04be9a1/bead-bind-startup.md) · discussion: Talk: Paving The Cowpath
**You are binding paving-the-cowpath.** A **concept/design bead** (opened 2026-06-22) naming the principle by which an AI-discovered computational **desire line** is hardened into keyless deterministic `.mjs` + classical/local algorithms (CV, local `transformer.js`) once traffic proves it — **descending the cognition ladder**. Stance: *roads are where cars flow* (don't reify routes; they emerge from authn/authz gates and are paved after flow). **6 open questions await Stephen.** **Do this first:** read [2026-06-22/notes/00-paving-the-cowpath.md](2026-06-22/notes/00-paving-the-cowpath.md), then skim [about.md](about.md).
## Operative onboarding - **Goal** — make paving a real practice: define the trigger (what measures a desire line's traffic), the verification (golden-test regression gate), and where paved skills live; ship a first paved skill. - **Mounted commons** — see [names.json](names.json): acequia-component (`1697e2ae`), orchestrator (`4c6470f9`, escalation queue = paving workshop), handler/cognition-ladder (`fe7fbaf5`), cache (`4456cd24`), authz (`9b2fcc1c`). - **Constraints** — offer-only; pave only traffic-proven desire lines (premature paving = reifying a road with no cars); keyless is the target (no centralized foundational model, no access tokens).
## Todo / next actions (linked) - [ ] Get Stephen to bind the **6 open questions** in [00-paving-the-cowpath.md](2026-06-22/notes/00-paving-the-cowpath.md) §8 (trigger, who paves, where paved skills live, re-escalation policy, verification, acequia-access.json as gate+pave surface). - [ ] Build the **first paved skill** as the worked example: the cameras→splat mid-stream transform (deterministic CV pose estimation + local `transformer.js` feature matcher in a `.mjs`, keyless) — also the acequia-component falsifier. - [ ] Wire to the orchestrator's **escalation queue** so novel cases logged there become paving candidates.
## Resume contract Dirty-gate background-synced when a chat advances it. On `/bead-close-chat`: flush concepts into `notes/`, flush the chat log, refresh this file + `about.md`, background `/bead-sync`.