Communication Engineering Research

An open index of evidence, theory, and practice

research-document

Communication Engineering lifecycle installation

Research Area
General Research
Status
draft
Version
0.1
Priority
medium
Updated
2026-07-22
Source
docs/lifecycle-installation.md

Communication Engineering lifecycle installation

The lifecycle package installs only the evidence-bounded operational context required for day-to-day communication decisions. Canonical research remains in this repository and is not copied into consuming repositories.

Commands

communication-engineering init
communication-engineering status
communication-engineering verify --strict
communication-engineering upgrade
communication-engineering doctor

All commands accept --root PATH and --json. init and upgrade accept --dry-run and --check.

Until an npm release is configured, a consuming repository may execute a pinned GitHub revision through npm:

npm exec --yes \
  --package=github:kemiller2002/communication-engineering#<commit-sha> \
  communication-engineering -- init

Pin the commit. Do not use an unversioned moving branch in an automated migration.

Installed state

The default installation contains:

  • .communication-engineering/COMMUNICATION-FOUNDATIONS.md
  • .communication-engineering/COMMUNICATION-DECISION-CHECKLIST.md
  • .communication-engineering/PURPOSE-OUTCOME-MATRIX.md
  • .communication-engineering/COMMUNICATION-ANTI-PATTERNS.md
  • .communication-engineering/RESEARCH-STATUS.md
  • .echelon/communication-engineering.config.json
  • .echelon/communication-engineering.json
  • a managed Communication Engineering region in AGENTS.md

The configuration file can move the context directory or disable the AGENTS integration by setting integrations.agentsFile to null.

Ownership and safety

Operational context files are tool-owned. A locally modified managed file blocks an upgrade rather than being overwritten. The AGENTS integration is a bounded managed region; unrelated instructions remain untouched.

init and upgrade calculate the complete plan before writing. Conflicts return exit code 5 and nothing from that plan is applied.

Repeated init on a current installation is write-free and content-idempotent.

Evidence discipline

Installation does not make Communication Engineering research universally valid. The installed RESEARCH-STATUS.md remains part of the operational context so agents can distinguish accepted foundations from provisional or unsupported claims.