Analogical reasoning as an engineering tool

Most of the systems on this site are the same handful of ideas wearing different clothes. Decompose a big task into inspectable phases. Let a deterministic layer hold the line while an agent does the creative part. Make the intermediate state a real artifact. I didn’t invent these per project; I carried them across.

That’s analogical reasoning as an engineering tool: notice that Terragram (May 2025) generating compliant infrastructure is the same problem you meet all over this site (produce an artifact, make it safe and reviewable by construction), and you get to reuse the shape of the solution instead of rediscovering it. Scripts judge; agents propose is the same shape in a different coat.

The discipline is knowing where the analogy stops. Two problems that rhyme aren’t identical, and the place they differ is usually where the real work is. The analogy gets you to the starting line fast; it doesn’t run the race.