D.6 Engineering Capital
Is accumulated engineering structure producing value for later work?
Engineering structure becomes capital when later work inherits productive capacity from it. Models, validators, procedures, generators, and gates become capital when the value they provide to later work exceeds the cost to build, run, understand, reconcile, and maintain them.
Read capital through five questions:
- Return. What future work became cheaper, safer, faster, or possible because this structure exists?
- Inheritance. Do later engineers and agents reuse the capability, or reconstruct an equivalent solution?
- Carrying cost. What does the structure cost to run, understand, reconcile, and maintain?
- Depreciation. Has the system, obligation, model substrate, or surrounding workflow moved far enough that the structure's return is falling?
- Retirement. Which structure now costs more to carry than the future value it preserves?
ENGINEERING CAPITAL "Is accumulated structure still earning its keep?"
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RETURN later work gains capability
INHERITANCE value is reused, not reconstructed
CARRYING upkeep remains proportionate
DEPRECIATION fit and return are watched
RETIREMENT stale capital is removed
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Capital = productive structure, not apparatus quantity.Support ratio and control count measure accumulated apparatus, not capital return. Evaluate that apparatus by the future capability it enables net of carrying cost. Appendix H records DocAble's observed support and control growth.
One way to test for engineering capital is to hold the task and reasoner approximately fixed while changing the environment. If the same intelligence can answer larger questions, reconstruct less context, require less intervention, or produce more durable work in one environment than another, the difference is evidence that the environment stores productive capacity.