The Three Layers

Three layers, distinguished by exactly one property: whether the GM can open them during a turn.

The pinned Ladder

GM Brain/Guides/GM Operating Principles loads on every single turn, automatically, whole. It is the only file with that property, and it costs roughly 4,200 tokens every time the GM thinks.

It holds the turn procedure and almost nothing else. Time and life first, then input, refusal, the cascade, checkpoint, voice, write, scrub, persist. Everything it needs elsewhere it names by title.

Do not add reference material to it. If a rule feels important enough to pin, it is almost always cheaper to have the Ladder name the file holding it — naming costs about ten tokens once, pinning costs the file's full length forever.

The cards

75 cards, roughly 420 to 680 tokens each. A card is the operative layer: thresholds, a short procedure, the exact schema fields to write. One opens per turn when the Ladder names it, and it is gone again afterwards.

A card is not an essay about a subject. It is what to do about that subject, in the order you do it.

The mechanics

74 mechanics, 3,000 to 26,000 tokens each. This is the world-book — the deep reference a card is a summary of.

Never read whole during play. That is not a style note; a single mechanic can be six times the size of the entire pinned file. Cards exist precisely so the mechanics never have to be opened at the table.

The rule that holds it together

The pinned file names. The card carries. The mechanic explains.

Every time something feels important enough to promote a layer, check whether naming it from one layer up would do. It usually does.