Diagnostic Infrastructure
A diagnostic and operating system for identifying, naming, and correcting structural failure in human systems.
Coherence is a diagnostic and operating system for identifying, naming, and correcting structural failure in human systems.
It exists to surface truth, restore authority, and preserve continuity over time.
Coherence is not a productivity tool. It is not coaching. It is not therapy. It is not vibes.
It is a pattern-recognition system designed for environments where ambiguity is expensive and failure has real consequences.
The objective of Coherence is to reduce corrective effort by making structural dysfunction visible early, before it metastasizes into human exhaustion, reputational damage, or systemic collapse.
Organizations fail in predictable ways. Authority diffuses. Narratives shift without acknowledgment. Reality becomes progressively harder to name. These breakdowns are not mysterious, but they are often invisible until the cost becomes undeniable.
Traditional problem-solving treats symptoms. A missed deadline becomes a project management issue. A misalignment becomes a communication problem. A recurring breakdown becomes someone's fault.
But beneath these visible failures lies structure. Authority that doesn't match responsibility. Commitments that dissolve without record. Truth that cannot be spoken without career risk.
Coherence treats these as structural failures, not performance failures. The system itself is producing the breakdown. No amount of individual effort, motivation, or communication training can fix what is broken at the level of design.
This is especially critical in decision infrastructure and AI governance contexts, where structural ambiguity compounds across layers of systems, models, and human oversight. When responsibility for AI system outcomes is diffuse, when the truth about model behavior cannot be named clearly, when commitments about safety or fairness evaporate between versions—these are not edge cases. They are structural failures that Coherence is built to detect and correct.
All Coherence diagnostics are grounded in three vertices. These are not aspirations. They are structural requirements for any system that must operate reliably over time.
Is reality being accurately perceived and spoken? Truth measures whether the system can see what is actually happening and whether participants can name it without distortion, fear, or political cost.
Does decision-making power match responsibility? Authority measures whether the people with the power to decide are the same people who bear the consequences.
Are commitments, decisions, and narratives stable over time? Continuity measures whether the system remembers what it decided and why.
Every diagnostic must score all three vertices and identify which is most stressed. Findings are tied back to structure, not personality. If a response does not reference the Triangle, it is incomplete.
Coherence uses two diagnostic primitives to make structural failure visible and actionable.
Failure Modes are structural breakdowns that explain why a system fails. They are descriptive, not accusatory. They apply to systems, not people. They are finite and enumerated.
Each Failure Mode has a name, a definition, a structural signature, and observable symptoms. Once named, a Failure Mode can be tracked, measured, and corrected at the structural level.
Example Failure Modes include:
Explore the Failure Mode Library →
Functional Field Notes are early signals that indicate a Failure Mode is forming. They are observational, not prescriptive. They surface before collapse. They exist to enable early intervention.
FFNs are weak signals captured in the moment: a repeated phrasing in meetings, a gap in who speaks, a decision that reverses without acknowledgment. Individually, they may seem minor. Longitudinally, they reveal pattern.
No new Failure Mode or Field Note may be invented without explicit canon update. Discipline in naming prevents diagnostic drift.
Coherence recognizes that structural failure often emerges from mode violations—situations where someone operates outside the permissions granted by their role or context.
There are four identity modes. These are not personality types. They are permission boundaries.
Every Coherence recommendation identifies the detected mode and the appropriate mode for the situation. Mode bleed—acting as an Architect when you have Inhabitant permissions, or behaving as an Executor when you should be in Alchemist mode—is itself a coherence failure.
This framework is especially relevant in AI governance and decision infrastructure, where ambiguity about who has authority to modify system behavior, who is experimenting versus deploying, and who is accountable for outcomes creates catastrophic vulnerabilities.
Coherence does not speculate. All claims must be supported by at least one of the following:
Anecdotes without pattern recognition are flagged as weak signal. If information is insufficient, Coherence says so. Silence is preferable to confident nonsense.
Coherence treats memory as infrastructure, not accident. Decisions must retain rationale, not just outcome. Diagnostics are indexed, not forgotten. Repeated patterns are tracked longitudinally.
If the system forgets why it decided something, that is Structural Amnesia, not progress.
Every full Coherence diagnostic includes, at minimum:
Anything less is a partial diagnostic and is labeled as such.
If you are responsible for systems that keep breaking in ways that feel familiar, Coherence is built for you. When the same failure occurs across different teams, when solutions don't stick, when you suspect the problem is not the people but the structure beneath them—Coherence provides the diagnostic language to make that visible and correctable.
If your work involves diagnosing organizational dysfunction, Coherence offers a rigorous alternative to vibes-based assessment. The Triangle provides a durable framework. Failure Modes provide repeatable diagnostic language. The evidence discipline prevents the diagnostic itself from becoming a source of ambiguity.
If you work in responsible AI, algorithmic accountability, or decision system design, Coherence translates cleanly into your domain. AI systems inherit the structural failures of the organizations that build and deploy them. Authority-Responsibility Mismatch in model ownership, Narrative Drift in safety commitments, Structural Amnesia in incident response—these are not metaphors. They are load-bearing risks.
Coherence is designed for environments where failure has consequences and where the cost of not seeing clearly is compounding.
There are three ways to engage with the Coherence framework:
Coherence is preserved by saying less, not more. If an output increases noise, diffuses responsibility, or weakens continuity, it violates the system—even if it sounds helpful.
This principle governs how Coherence operates. Precision over persuasion. Clarity over comfort. Restraint over verbosity.
No hype. No "insights" without evidence. No metaphors unless they clarify structure.
If language sounds inspirational but cannot be operationalized, it is wrong.
The Coherence framework is developed and maintained by Justin R. Greenbaum, founder of Greenbaum Labs. The Failure Mode library is published regularly on Substack, where each mode is explored in depth with structural signatures, field notes, and diagnostic guidance.
For diagnostic engagements, organizational assessments, or questions about applying Coherence to decision infrastructure and AI governance contexts, contact justin@greenbaumlabs.com.