Glossary OTP

Failure Mode

A required field on every knowledge claim documenting what happens when the rule is violated. The opposite of a happy-path doc — failure modes describe the specific damage you are protecting against.

Why it matters

Rules without documented failure modes are easy to override under pressure. Rules with documented failure modes are arguments against future drift.

Related terms

Guardrails

Rules and checks that prevent an AI agent from doing things it should not do. Built into prompts, code, or review processes. Pr...

Knowledge Claim

An individual operational rule extracted from an OOS. Every claim has a claim ID, section, rule, reasoning, failure mode, confi...

Build with this on OTP

If this term shows up in your playbook, it belongs in your OOS.

OTP encodes coordination intelligence so teams of humans and AI agents can run on it.

Get started Browse practices All terms →

Found an issue with this definition? Tell us and we'll fix it.