Flywheel Loop

Conformance language (MUST/SHOULD/MAY) follows BCP 14 [RFC2119]/[RFC8174] as defined in 00-overview.md. The binding source is the FlowMCP Schemas Specification v4.2.0.

The Flywheel as an IN/OUT Round-Trip

The grading process is a round-trip between the source repository and the workbench:

IN — a provider folder (or selection definition) is imported into the workbench, snapshotted, and normalised.
Grade — the provider-side and selection-side Areas grade the imported primitives, writing _gradings/ and rolling them up into index.json.
OUT — the graded state, primarily the index.json, is exported back to the source.

The pattern is self-reinforcing: every improvement raises the aggregate quality of the selections that contain the schema, and every selection run identifies the weakest schemas in a namespace. The loop is iteration over the same artefacts; the workbench index.json carries the current graded state across rounds.

Mermaid Diagram

Reading Direction

Reading direction: top-down (flowchart TD) follows the iteration flow. The pre-condition gate and the stable back-reference make the flywheel effect visible: every new stable provider-side grade opens the door for selection-side grading, and every selection run identifies the weakest schemas in the namespace.

Reference Fields per Node

Node	Reference
IMPORT / OUT	`19-folder-layout.md` — the IN/OUT round-trip and folder layout
NS / SCHEMA	`04-phases-single.md` — provider-side Areas; `08-grading-model.md` — data model
SINGLE / SGRADE	`04-phases-single.md`, `05-phases-selection.md` — Area `_gradings/` placement
IDXN / IDXS	`19-folder-layout.md` — the `index.json` rollup (live rollup + frozen lockSnapshot, 5-status)
GATE	`21-pre-conditions.md` — pre-conditions (only `stable` members pass)
STABLE / PART	`06-determinism-and-tier.md` — partial vs. full and the five node statuses
ABOUT	`11-about-convention.md` — About as a schema Resource

Self-Reinforcing Effect

The flywheel is self-reinforcing along three loops:

Quality loop per schema: SINGLE → CHECK → FIX → NEWSNAP → SCHEMA → SINGLE. Each iteration writes a new versioned snapshot (timestamp + hash in the file name); the next grading tests the improved schema variant. The hash binding lives in index.json, never in the source (see 19-folder-layout.md).
Aggregation loop per selection: SGRADE → (on member change) GATE → SGRADE. Every re-grading of a member updates the namespace index.json; the selection’s frozen lockSnapshot is refreshed at the next selection-grading start.
About-verification loop: ABOUT (route-exists + content check) → on change a new About snapshot → re-check; the namespace index.json records the new About grade.

Anti-Patterns

The following patterns break the flywheel and are excluded by the spec:

Partial gradings without a concluding full grading: the node status never reaches stable, the selection stays blocked (see 06-determinism-and-tier.md).
Schema edit without a new snapshot: a source edit MUST produce a new versioned snapshot file; editing in place breaks the latest-resolution and the hash binding (see 19-folder-layout.md).
Selection grading with non-stable members: the pre-condition (see 21-pre-conditions.md) blocks the selection run before any Area runs.

Cross-References

Round-trip and folder layout → 19-folder-layout.md
Partial vs. full and the five node statuses → 06-determinism-and-tier.md
Pre-condition → 21-pre-conditions.md
Provider-side Areas → 04-phases-single.md
Selection-side Areas → 05-phases-selection.md

Depends on: 00-overview.md, 06-determinism-and-tier.md, 08-grading-model.md, 19-folder-layout.md, 21-pre-conditions.md
Related: 04-phases-single.md, 05-phases-selection.md, 11-about-convention.md