The right build order prevents sophisticated capabilities from collapsing before their foundations exist. This article derives the prerequisite graph, constraint migration, and phase gate framework for sequencing autonomic edge capabilities — then formalizes five handover constructs: predictive triggering for cognitive inertia, asymmetric trust dynamics, Merkle-gated command validation, semantic compression against alert fatigue, and the L0 physical interlock that no autonomic loop can override.
At the edge, a radio transmission costs 100x more energy than a local computation, and the network may be unreachable for hours. This article builds the formal foundation: how to model contested connectivity with Markov chains, when local autonomy mathematically beats cloud control, and what keeps autonomous control loops stable when they can't phone home.
A synthesis of Theory of Constraints, causal inference, reliability engineering, and second-order cybernetics into a unified methodology for engineering systems under resource constraints. The framework provides formal constraint identification, causal validation protocols, investment thresholds, dependency ordering, and explicit stopping criteria. Unlike existing methodologies, it includes the meta-constraint: the optimization workflow itself competes for the same resources as the system being optimized.