Product Strategy

Drift is most credible when the product story stays narrower than the research surface around it.

Product core

The product should read first as a practical tool:

• CLI for local analysis
• CI gate for gradual enforcement
• configuration for repository-specific calibration
• outputs teams can review and automate against

Supporting layers

The surrounding material matters, but should remain clearly secondary to the product core:

• research and benchmark methodology
• product strategy and roadmap
• outreach and ecosystem positioning

Positioning

The most defensible promise is not that drift proves architectural erosion with perfect certainty.

The defensible promise is that drift surfaces structural drift patterns that often appear in fast-moving and AI-assisted codebases, then gives teams a deterministic way to inspect and act on them.

Adoption principle

For real teams, the sequence is:

1. fast trial
2. understandable findings
3. evidence of trustworthiness
4. gradual policy tightening

That means the repository should optimize for:

• a short path from install to first useful result
• visible explanation of what drift is and is not
• conservative rollout guidance
• benchmark transparency without making methodology the homepage

Repository reading order

Recommended reading order for new users:

1. README
2. Quick Start
3. Team Rollout
4. Benchmarking and Trust
5. Deeper algorithm and study material

Operational implication

When there is tension between adding more surface area and making findings more credible, credibility wins.