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book-technical

Technical book craft reference: concept gradient, running project, failure-first teaching, code standards, diagrams, exercises, version handling, the technical-book AI tells. Read by all agents on programming, engineering, and data science books.

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# Technical

The reader of a technical book is trying to become someone who can do the thing. Every chapter must move them closer to doing it themselves, and the surest sign of a book that fails is a reader who can follow along but cannot deviate.

## Structure

Default: **Intro (10-15%) → Foundations (25%) → Practice (30%) → Advanced (20%) → Reference (10%)**. Within that:

- **Running project.** The reader builds one thing across the book. Each chapter adds a capability. By the end they have something that works and that they understand every line of. Books without a running project produce readers who have read about the thing.
- **Concept gradient**: each concept is introduced once, at the first chapter that needs it, with the minimum needed then, and deepened later where it becomes necessary. The outline's dependency DAG enforces this; the architect verifies there are no forward references.
- **Difficulty is monotonic non-decreasing** within a part; the first chapter of a part can step back slightly.
- **Reference material** (API tables, option lists) goes to the back or an appendix, never inside a teaching chapter.

## Failure-first teaching