---
title: Scaffold Tiers
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-05-15
type: concept
tags: [open-scaffold, workflow, source-of-truth]
sources: [../../START_HERE.md#adopt-the-minimum-scaffold, ROADMAP.md]
confidence: medium
contested: false
---

# Scaffold Tiers

Scaffold tiers describe how much Open Scaffold structure a project needs. The idea is to avoid forcing every repository into the maximum protocol while still giving serious work enough durable context to survive agents, reviews, and time.

## Tier intuition

- **Minimum**: mission, roadmap, basic plan/evidence conventions.
- **Standard**: stronger plan/run/release traceability for recurring agent-assisted work.
- **Maximum**: deeper governance, handoffs, evidence, and cockpit patterns for high-risk or multi-agent work.

The exact tier should match project risk and coordination cost. A tiny experiment does not need the same structure as a client delivery, regulated workflow, or long-running multi-agent build.

## Boundary

Tiers are adoption paths, not quality labels. The right tier is the smallest structure that keeps the work recoverable.

Related: [[repo-native-work-record]], [[what-is-open-scaffold-for]], [[source-of-truth-first-development]].