XIII

Manage only what you declare

The tool touches only what you declare and deletes only what it owns.

A half-written configuration should never claim authority over what it does not mention. A field left out is a field the tool never reads or changes, and a delete is gated on an ownership marker the live resource carries, so dropping a line is not a purge and a resource the tool does not own is never swept away. This is what keeps adoption and a live source of truth survivable, because a newcomer’s omission cannot become a mass deletion.