wardley-maps.sgit.ai / Glossary
Thirty-five concepts, classified
Every distinct Wardley-related idea in the corpus this site draws on, with the
words it was first stated in, the date, and — the column that matters — whether it is
standard doctrine, an extension, or an original contribution.
A correction to our own source. The research table this page is
generated from opens by declaring
"33 entries — 14 [O], 13 [E], 6 [S]". Parsing it
yields
35 rows classified 17 original / 14 extension / 4 standard. Four rows are lettered sub-entries
(W6b, W13b, W15b, W25b) of a parent concept, which explains the row count but not the class
split. The parse is what this page and
the endpoint publish, because the table is the artefact
and the header is a summary of it. Logged as
N2.
That classification is the site's editorial spine, and it is also the
licence-safe move. Standard doctrine is Simon Wardley's: his book says it first and better, and
restating CC BY-SA material as though it were ours would both mislead and
infect the page's licence. So standard doctrine is
linked, never rewritten. Extensions and originals are what this site is for.
Two vocabulary problems, fixed here
Spelling. The corpus uses commoditise / commoditize and productise /
productize interchangeably, sometimes in the same document. This site uses
-ise throughout, to match the rest of the network. The -ize spellings are the
same word and carry no different meaning; quotations keep whatever spelling they were written
with.
Names. Explorer and Pioneer are the same thing; so are
Villager and Settler. The rename is stated outright exactly once in the entire
corpus — parenthetically, in a brief about something else. This site states it on every first
use and never drifts: Explorer = Pioneer, Villager = Settler, Town Planner = Town
Planner, after Simon Wardley,
On Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners and Theft (2015), CC BY-SA 3.0. The word
Settler appears once in the entire corpus; it is not adopted here.
A teaching order, six rungs
The corpus is dense at the top and thin at the bottom: one 846-word primer, then a cliff.
This is the ladder — and /start/ walks it.
1What a map is
Anchor, position, evolution, the four stages. This belongs to Wardley — link out to the book and to Wardley Mapping 101; this site does not rewrite it.
All thirty-five
Machine-readable at /agents/concepts.json.
The source paths are inside a private repository and are recorded for provenance, not
retrieval — see what is and is not published.
Original contribution 17
Not found in the doctrine or in the ecosystem's literature. The reason this site exists.
W1 Explorer / Villager / Town Planner — Wardley's PST renamed and made into three literal agent teams
Original contribution
mature
14 Feb 2026
"Simon Wardley identifies three team archetypes mapped to the evolution axis… Explorers / Villagers / Town Planners" and later, explicitly: "(Explorer, Villager, and Town Planner map to Wardley's Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners.)"
[O] — the naming, and the application to AI agents, is his
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/02/14/v0.3.2__briefs__wardley-maps-in-sgraph-project.md read the page →
W4 Cartographer as the role that makes mapping operational
Original contribution
mature
14 Feb 2026
"The Cartographer is the role that makes the Wardley Maps framework operational rather than theoretical. Without the Cartographer actively maintaining and updating the evolution map, the Explorer/Villager distinction becomes opinion rather than evidence."
[O]
Source: same as W1
W5 A map is a graph with positional metadata
Original contribution
mature
7 Feb 2026
"a Wardley Map is not a separate artifact from the graph. It is a graph with positional metadata.… The graph is primary; the map is a projection… Map queries are graph queries with positional filters"
[O] — the strongest architectural idea in the corpus
Source: team/roles/cartographer/REFERENCE__from-issues-fs.md read the page →
W7 The custom-axis verdict, and the evolution-vs-maturity line
Original contribution
mature
28 Jul 2026
"the evolution scale doesn't necessarily need to be Genesis, custom-built, product and commodity; you can go from air gap to file to API to event-driven."… "The practical rule: relabel the axis when the thing genuinely evolves; use a maturity model when the thing merely improves."
[O] — the sharpest methodological contribution in the corpus, with sources cited
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/07/28/mvp-and-field-demo/v0.33.53__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-map-of-the-airgapped-register-custom-evolution-axes-broken-middle-shape.md read the page →
W8 De-commoditisation / the attrition shield
Original contribution
mature
17 May 2026
"a thing can be commoditised at one phase of evolution while still being meaningfully custom-built at the next phase… I am going to call this pattern de-commoditisation"; "The Wardley Map shows the commodity. The shield is what the map does not show. Both matter."
[O] — explicitly framed as a gap in doctrine
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/05/17/v0.27.55__article__de-commoditising-the-commodity (1).md read the page →
W11 The agent as a user
Original contribution
developing
23 Jun 2026
"the agent is also a user… Execution is mature; safe authorization via an LLM is custom-built and immature; the LLM is commodity, but the uninjected, on-task safe decision is not"
[O]
Source: same as W10; drawn in `…/v0.33.33__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-first-pass-eight-maps-user-needs-before-after.md
W12 The air gap as manual labour; the ends-evolved-middle-manual shape
Original contribution
mature
28 Jul 2026
"you cannot map a gap, because a gap has no evolution"; "this will be a very interesting shape where you can have the top working quite efficiently, and then the middle bit those lines all the way to the left because they're manual… the ends are solved. the middle is people."
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/07/28/mvp-and-field-demo/v0.33.53__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-map-of-the-airgapped-register-custom-evolution-axes-broken-middle-shape.md read the page →
W13b The node-naming parse-error caveat (empirical)
Original contribution
mature
24 May 2026
"component and anchor names that contain a hyphen, an ampersand, or a slash cause a parse error when those names are referenced in links or evolve statements.… The robust fix is to keep component and anchor names to letters and spaces"
[O] — original empirical finding
Source: same as W13 read the page →
W14 The lifecycle of a skill: Explorer → Product → Town Planner → absorbed
Original contribution
mature
4 Jun 2026
"the lifecycle of a skill is to start as massive LLM, held together with string and gum, very expensive, lots of tokens, all the way to a product, all the way to code, and it almost becomes a commodity, eventually disappearing, because maybe it is absorbed by something else."
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/04/v0.32.3__strategy-brief__sg-send-skill-lifecycle-explorer-to-town-planner-english-to-code.md read the page →
W15 High token spend is an engineering problem
Original contribution
mature
4 Jun 2026
"Anybody who spends a lot of money on tokens has an engineering problem. They are using explorer-type code and solutions in a commodity environment."
[O] — the most quotable line in the corpus
Source: same as W14 read the page →
W15b English → code as the maturity mechanism; LLM-powered test harness
Original contribution
mature
4 Jun 2026
"the natural progression of a skill is to start in English and end up in code. As you refine the skill, you reduce the scope, you reduce the variability."; "the testing can be more in explorer mode, because the testing can have the subjectivity and power of an LLM"
[O]
Source: same as W14
W17 Safe is not secure
Original contribution
mature
23 Jun 2026
"there is a difference between safe and secure. Secure is just the security metrics. Safe is whether it is aligned with the risk appetite, within the threshold of risk the business or the person is willing to accept."
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/23/wardley-maps/v0.33.33__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-brief-user-needs-first-before-after-agent-as-user-maturity.md
W18 The vibe-coded MVP is the best brief; the three-team shipping workflow
Original contribution
mature
12 May 2026 (YAML `date:`)
"the vibe coded MVP is the specification. It is more precise, more concrete, and more usable than any document the business stakeholder could have written."
[O] — and note it inverts the seniority: "This work is best suited to junior and mid-level engineers" (Villager) / "the most experienced engineers on the team" (Town Planner)
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/05/11/v0.27.32__article__explorer-villager-town-planner-vibe-coding-workflow.md
W23 A map is a falsifiable claim, not a picture
Original contribution
developing
14 Aug 2026
"A Wardley map is a claim, not a picture: it asserts where each component sits on the evolution axis and is therefore arguable."
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/08/14/sgit-site-and-hub/v0.33.58__strategy-brief__sgit-topic-sections-catalogue-read-keys-yes-write-keys-never-frozen-vaults.md read the page →
W24 Somebody has to be the villagers — NFRs as the sellable unit
Original contribution
mature
31 Jul 2026
"the sweet spot is to find the economic value where it's cheaper for these companies to pay a third party to maintain what I call the non-functional requirements"; "Demand for a specific skill is rising sharply while the mechanism that produces that skill is being dismantled"
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/07/31/markets-and-field-demo/v0.33.54__strategy-brief__sg-send-somebody-has-to-be-the-villagers-maintaining-non-functional-requirements-scarce-asset.md read the page →
W25 The same skill differs by Wardley character
Original contribution
developing
4 Jun 2026
"a skill, the same skill for a town planner, is very different for an explorer, for a villager. It is all about context-specific, but now we can do this, and we can scale."
[O]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/04/v0.32.3__strategy-brief__sg-send-skills-as-graph-capturing-how-business-works.md
W31 Honest mapping / do not overclaim
Original contribution
mature
24 May / 28 Jul 2026
"even in the tracked (free) mode, the data is still encrypted; we still do not have access to the full data, so the privacy properties still hold. The maps should not overclaim." and "Is there a map that shows us badly? Worth drawing, as the test of whether these are analysis or marketing"
[O]
Source: …/v0.27.60__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-setup-and-mermaid-capability.md` and `…/v0.33.53__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-map-of-the-airgapped-register…md read the page →
Extension 14
Standard doctrine pushed somewhere it is not usually taken.
W6 Configurable / alternative evolution axes (openness, automation, documentation, test coverage, graph connectivity)
Extension
developing
7 Feb 2026
"by treating the evolution axis as a configurable dimension rather than a fixed one, and by storing axis metadata in the graph alongside everything else"
[E]
Source: team/roles/cartographer/REFERENCE__from-issues-fs.md read the page →
W6b Same idea restated as visibility / risk overlays
Extension
developing
19 Jun 2026
"in Wardley maps the evolution does not always need to be genesis, custom-built, product, commodity. You can have other axes: visibility from not-visible to fully-visible, or risk from not-understood to fully-accepted."
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/19/strategy-phase-and-shipping/v0.33.28__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-productizing-commoditizing-permissions-explorer-phase.md read the page →
W10 The commodity illusion
Extension
mature
23 Jun 2026
"what is interesting when you map like this is that you see a lot of things that feel like a commodity or a product to the user are actually very weak and very immature behind the scenes."
[E] — a named reading of maps, not standard vocabulary
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/23/wardley-maps/v0.33.33__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-brief-user-needs-first-before-after-agent-as-user-maturity.md
W13 Wardley-maps-as-Mermaid-code, and the [visibility, evolution] coordinate rule
Extension
mature
24 May 2026
"Mermaid uses the OnlineWardleyMaps format [visibility, evolution], which is the opposite of typical (x, y) notation.… Getting this backwards puts every component in the wrong place, so it is the thing to check first."
[E] — tooling knowledge, verified by rendering
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/05/24/sg-send-thread/v0.27.60__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-setup-and-mermaid-capability.md read the page →
W16 Explorer-phase discipline: defer Town-Planner artifacts
Extension
mature
19 Jun 2026
"there is no point doing things that are typical Villager and Town Planner company maturity when you are still dealing with Explorer ambiguity. Do not spend time creating things that are pure hypothesis you just cannot know"
[E] — PST applied to the company itself, not to teams
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/19/strategy-phase-and-shipping/v0.33.28__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-productizing-commoditizing-permissions-explorer-phase.md
W19 A working tool is already a commodity; switching drags the user back to Genesis
Extension
developing
7 Jun 2026
"once a tool works, it has become a commodity for its user, and asking them to switch asks them back to Genesis, which is why change is so hard."
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/07/v0.32.7__strategy-brief__sg-send-tool-replacement-strategy-compatible-commoditize-de-risk.md
W20 Vaults embody the Wardley flow
Extension
developing
19 Jun 2026
"the vaults are so powerful because they let us experiment wildly in a very controlled way, then bring them into the main codebase as the villagers take over, and then productise, including the town-planner team that makes it super solid."
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/19/strategy-phase-and-shipping/v0.33.28__strategy-brief__sg-send-need-to-ship-iterate-learn-ci-pipeline-wardley-flow-cost-constraint.md
W21 Doctrine assessment as a standing role responsibility
Extension
sketch (never executed)
7 Feb 2026
"The Cartographer's doctrine responsibility is to periodically evaluate the… ecosystem against these principles and produce a score or health assessment… The doctrine assessment is fractal"
[E]
Source: team/roles/cartographer/REFERENCE__from-issues-fs.md
W22 Gameplay identification (ILC, open, ecosystem, tower-and-moat, Red Queen, sensing engines)
Extension
developing
7 Feb 2026
"Most Wardley Mapping practitioners stop at the map. The Cartographer must go further: doctrine assessment gives strategic health checks; gameplay analysis identifies available moves. These are where maps become actionable."
[E]
Source: team/roles/cartographer/REFERENCE__from-issues-fs.md
W25b Wardley "why now" for skills
Extension
developing
4 Jun 2026
"skills are a good example of the Wardley map's evolution scale, where a number of things evolve, new orders appear, implementations appear above. Skills could only be possible with the level of LLMs we have right now"
Source: same as W25
W26 Map the control flows and the cost flows together
Extension
sketch
24 May 2026
"cost and control flows, and cost flows. The graph is almost like the map of this, the Wardley map of this."
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/05/24/sg-sentinel-batch2/v0.27.60__arch-brief__sg-sentinel-cost-attribution-accountant-agent.md
W27 Every division has its own map and its own maturity
Extension
sketch
18 Jun 2026
"companies are made of multiple companies, multiple divisions, each with a different focus, different evolutionary scales, different Wardley maps, different maturities. We need to take that into account."
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/18/agentic-permissions/v0.33.40__strategy-brief__graphs-of-graphs-ontology-of-ontologies-permissions-mapping-reality-not-complexity.md
W28 Paired before/after maps as the unit of argument
Extension
mature
23 Jun 2026
"Each map is drawn twice. The reality map shows how immature the path is today… The with-our-service map shows the same value chain once our service supplies the missing data… The distance between the two is the case for the service."
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/23/wardley-maps/v0.33.33__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-brief-user-needs-first-before-after-agent-as-user-maturity.md
W30 Push the value chain down / commoditise the experience
Extension
developing
3 Jun 2026
"it takes the parts that would otherwise be custom-built and bespoke… and commoditises them into reusable primitives, so the only thing left to be custom is the top line, the experience"
[E]
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/03/v0.31.12__strategy-brief__sg-send-vault-as-platform-of-primitives.md
Standard doctrine 4
Wardley's, and his book says it first and better. Linked, not restated.
W2 The "theft" / handover
Standard doctrine
mature
14 Feb 2026
"The key dynamic is what Wardley calls the 'theft' — the villagers take (pinch) what the explorers have built and turn it into a product."
Source: same as W1 read the page →
W3 The SG/Send evolution map (13 components positioned)
Standard doctrine
mature
14 Feb 2026
"The components in the top group (encryption, upload/download, S3 backend, tokens) are ready for the Villager team to productise. The components in the bottom group are still being explored."
applied
Source: same as W1
W9 Commoditise-to-enable (ILC applied)
Standard doctrine
mature
24 May 2026
"once you commoditise something, you enable other businesses to be built on top"; "when something is commoditised, a higher order of activities appears, and that is where the market opportunities are"
Source: team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/05/24/sg-send-thread/v0.27.60__strategy-brief__sg-send-wardley-maps-setup-and-mermaid-capability.md read the page →
W29 User-needs-first doctrine (his statement of it)
Standard doctrine
mature
23 Jun 2026
"the thing about Wardley maps that is always important is to start with the user needs, so we start with what they actually want"
Source: same as W28