we keep hunting for the right noun.
user. customer. player. candidate. each one feels like progress. each one is a finite-game frame that extracts — it positions the other relative to something stable (interface, market, rules, committee) and quietly demotes the relationship into a role.
that hunt is the category error. labeling is framing. the frame is already doing most of the work before content arrives.
enrollment is the chess match
what you are in here already ran the Carse cut as operating spec, not branding metaphor. finite words for infinite play fail on contact. inside the game the stable thing is not the board — it is you, and you are not stable either.
this cut is the enrollment physics that follows. two moves, in order.
imposition first: we hold the axis. questions, standard, CLI shape. play or don't. that is the chess match — not a soft invite dressed as neutrality. the frame is set before they arrive, because a frame that pretends not to exist is still a frame, only worse: it hides its own moves.
excavation second: once they are inside, the constitution comes from their vocabulary. we do not paste a handbook over their words. we listen for the native nouns, the local verbs, the way they already describe the work — and we make that the shared memory. warm-shift in the UI is the same physics made visible: the frame moved, and you can see it move.
sequence is the claim. reverse them and you get branding cosplay or interrogation theater.
product words extract
every product word is a finite-game reach. user implies interface. customer implies market. player implies ruleset you wrote. candidate implies committee. they are not synonyms for "person in the room." they are extraction tools — they decide what counts as a valid move before the conversation starts.
reciprocity is the relationship, not a role. once you need the noun to do the ethics, the frame has already failed.
what we built without knowing it is the sibling surface: the constitution was already sitting in the turns. leave that spine alone. this cut is not "what the transcripts named." it is how enrollment orders the naming — impose the axis, then excavate their words into the shared board.
the first sentence already answers the labeling question
hi. what are you building?
that opener already holds both moves. the axis is ours (we asked; the question is the frame). the excavation starts in the same breath (their answer supplies the vocabulary the constitution will be cut from). the product-word hunt after that sentence is theater — the labeling question was already settled by how the game began.
imposition then excavation. enrollment is the chess match; the constitution is excavated second. reciprocity is the relationship, not a role.