The spine. Everything hangs off this.
Conceptual, no QKV math.
The insight layer. Most important.
Causal story, no math.
Practical.
Get the most from the window without touching weights.
Knowledge from the corpus, not the weights.
The differentiator. A lens, not a final topic — introduced early, applied everywhere.
Tools, loops, memory — and when a single call is better.
Bounded latency & cost, graceful degradation, fully traced.
Adversarial input is the default, not the exception.
Lowest priority for the app layer; knowing when NOT to is the skill.
depth-as-procrastinationdormanttreats 'I could go deeper here' as a reason to stay on a mastered concept; optimization bias operating on the syllabus
completion-seekingdormantwants full coverage before moving on; control preference. Redirect to the exit test, not coverage
premature-convergencedormantcloses options / commits to an explanation before testing alternatives; efficiency over exploration