Law 19 · Scope & Design
Decompose Before You Scale
When it's unreliable, split it. Don't supersize it.
The principle
When output is inconsistent, the instinct is to throw more at the same shape: a bigger model, a longer context, more tokens. That rarely fixes a structural problem. It just spreads attention thinner. Splitting the task into focused, single-purpose passes almost always beats trying to make one overloaded pass smarter.
The mechanism, the warning signs, a worked example, and the apply-it recipe for this law are in the complete edition.
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