Epistemic tags — the four-color raw scheme

Parent: knowledge-management

Every leaf note under raw/ carries exactly one epistemic tag marking where the knowledge came from, so the graph shows at a glance what is learned vs invented. (Folder/index notes keep only node — they're navigation, not knowledge. wiki/ notes are all fact by definition and are not tagged.)

The four

tag	meaning	example
`fact`	established EXTERNAL knowledge, noted while learning	Ashby's requisite variety; the relaxation fact-leaves
`synthesis`	my RECOMBINATION of ≥2 known ideas into a new frame	harness = DPLL(T) + control + Benders; Wirth's law as a KKT constraint
`original`	my own NOVEL claim/mechanism/doctrine	the market theses; "gatekeeper-not-driver"; root-protocol
`open`	an unresolved question, plan, stub, or working checklist	the safe-recursion sketch; benchmarks plan; standmeet todo

Rule of thumb: open is about the content being a question/plan, not about maturity — an early-stage original claim is still original.

Colors (colorblind-safe — Okabe–Ito)

Chosen to differ in brightness as well as hue, with no red/green pairing:

fact → blue #0072B2
synthesis → orange #E69F00
original → yellow #F0E442
open → reddish-purple #CC79A7

Set in Obsidian: Graph view → gear → Groups → add four, query tag:#fact etc., pick the color. (Presetting these lives in .obsidian/graph.json.)

The three tiers get their own Okabe–Ito colors on the same graph (the whole 8-color set is mutually colorblind-distinguishable, so tiers + epistemic don't clash): wiki/→teal #009E73, output/→vermillion #D55E00, and raw index/folder nodes→gray #7A7A7A.

Group order = FIRST match wins

Obsidian applies the first color group a node matches, so the specific tag:#… groups must come before the broad path:"raw/" fallback. Otherwise path:"raw/" grabs every raw node first and the epistemic colors never show (the graph collapses to gray-raw + teal-wiki). Correct order: the four tag: groups, then path:"raw/" (catches only untagged folder-notes), then path:"wiki/", path:"output/".

Applying it going forward

Every new raw leaf note gets one of the four in its tags:. When a fact note matures it graduates to wiki/ (and drops the epistemic tag — otherwise tag:#fact would colour it blue instead of wiki-teal); when a synthesis/original cluster becomes a complete piece it graduates to output/.

Graduating a fact that has a synthesis tail — split, don't delete. Many fact notes end in a "back to our thread / why this matters for the harness" tail. That tail is synthesis, not fact. To graduate: the clean established body → wiki/; the tail → a raw companion (<concept>-in-the-harness.md, tagged synthesis) that links up to the new wiki fact. Nothing original is thrown away; the reference gets clean; the programme keeps its reading. (Done this way for ashby, good-regulator, ramadge-wonham, prior-art, self-reference-classics.)