Structured collaboration with LLMs

Bane's Lab

Structured collaboration with LLMs

Bane's Lab documents the method I use to build software with LLMs, together with the instruction format, the software architecture and the ontology that the method relies on. I have used it since 2024, on every project I build, this site included. The method does not make a model's output correct. What it does is make incorrect output visible and refuse it, through checks that run on every change rather than through instructions the model is asked to remember.

Start with the methodRead the grammarEvery page as JSON and Markdown

How the site teaches

The site is organized around the methodology, which is one page of six tabs read in order, from Start to Ship. The grammar, architecture and ontology pages supply material that particular sections of the methodology rely on, and the visualization shows where each of their sections enters that order. The anatomy page works in the other direction: it shows the source of this site, and its sections link back to the chapters that describe it.

Start01 - The loop02 - Who does what03 - The stance04 - Adversarial bydefault05 - Resolving a message06 - Three encodings07 - Where a rule lives08 - Rules with names09 - A seat is a contract10 - The behaviourdocument11 - The drop-inIntroduction01 - What PAG is02 - Why it works03 - PAG and the methodGuide01 - Writing a firstdocument02 - Document structure03 - Semantic operations04 - Node design05 - Writing constraints06 - Well-formednessPlan12 - Worth before work13 - The plan is a graph14 - Execute the template15 - Ask where it appears16 - When rules collidePatterns01 - Instruction patterns02 - From intent tostructure03 - Genesis stages04 - Algorithm examples05 - IntegratingalgorithmsBuild17 - Detect, log, fix18 - The gate holds theline19 - The check comes first20 - A check matches ashape21 - Tools live in thetree22 - One home23 - The filesystem is thearchitecture24 - Fail at the boundary25 - Placement is agrammarVerify26 - It looked right27 - Verify the verifier28 - A report, not acheckbox29 - Unknown is not pass30 - One correct answer31 - Derived state32 - Counting copies33 - Documentation is code34 - Moves and renames35 - Coverage is derivedValidation01 - Validation gates02 - LimitsModel01 - A system is a graph02 - Definitions own what,code owns how03 - The layer spine04 - The direction axisPrinciples01 - Principles are typed02 - Every record has akind03 - The canon is groupedtwice04 - Computation andresource05 - Execution joins thehalves06 - The structural domain07 - A tension has amechanism08 - Separate, trade, ormitigateDecay01 - An anti-pattern is adecay path02 - Seven controls, sevenclasses03 - Never and always04 - Debt and leverageCoverage01 - From intent topredicate02 - What can drift, seenthrough how it drifts03 - A cell that resistsan invariant04 - The honest gapsGlossary01 - The principlearchitecture02 - Architectural rulesand principlesCollaborate36 - The developer and themodel37 - Agents as executedcontracts38 - Coordination issoftware39 - The board and thevenue40 - Posting and waitingare one operation41 - A turn never ends towait42 - Stating an invariantOrchestration01 - Orchestration asdeclared structure02 - Composing acollaboration03 - Shared surfaces04 - Phase binding05 - Handoff signals06 - OrchestrationinvariantsTemplates01 - Core templates02 - Coordinationtemplates03 - Planning templates04 - Template families05 - Agent templatesShip43 - One chain44 - Scale follows fromstructure45 - The deploy is a fileoperation46 - Proxies give way47 - The honest gapsScale01 - A concern is acomponent02 - The ceiling moves bycost03 - Above one tier,reduction04 - The author isprobabilistic05 - Scale followsdeterminism06 - Systems built arounda model

0rules enforced on every change

0steps in one verification run

0architecture principles

0defined terms

MethodologyDisciplined Methodology

The method itself comes in six parts that follow the order of the work, from starting a project to shipping it. Each section describes one practice, how it fails when it is missing, and a test you can run against your own work to check it.

• Start — Methodology
• Plan
• Build
• Verify
• Collaborate
• Ship
• Engineering leads · Software architects · LLM-assisted developers
Read the method

PAGPattern Abstract Grammar

Pattern Abstract Grammar is a structured format for writing instructions to a model. A document declares what type of instruction it is, draws its verbs from a closed vocabulary and ends every step on a gate with checkable evidence. The page covers the grammar, its validation rules and a set of templates.

• Introduction
• Guide
• Orchestration
• Patterns
• Keywords
• Grammar
• Validation
• Templates
• Software architects · LLM-assisted developers · Tool authors
Read the grammar

ArchitecturePrinciples, decay and coverage

The page covers software architecture for systems in which a model writes much of the code. It models a system as a graph, holds each principle as a typed record, traces each anti-pattern back to the control whose absence caused it, and derives coverage from a grid rather than from a count.

• Model
• Principles
• Decay
• Coverage
• Scale
• Glossary
• Engineering leads · Software architects · LLM-assisted developers
Read the architecture

OntologyPrinciples, lexicon and algorithms

The ontology is the data behind the architecture page, and the site's own checks read it too. It holds every principle with its relations and repairs, every defined term, every algorithm contract, and how each tension between two principles is resolved.

• Principles
• Lexicon
• Algorithms
• Reasoning
• Schema
• Software architects · LLM-assisted developers · Tool authors
Open the ontology

AnatomySource trees, walks and definitions

The anatomy page shows the client source of this site, parsed on every build. Each file is shown with its syntax walk, its definitions and the calls between them, together with the diagnoses the parser ran over the whole tree.

• Reading
• Site tree
• Build tree
• Coordination tree
• Software architects · LLM-assisted developers · Tool authors
Open the anatomy

FAQOrigin, practice and limits

Here I answer the questions I am asked most often about the methodology, including where it came from and where it stops being useful.

• Licensing
• Info
• Terms
• Privacy