03 / Principles
These were not written in a workshop. They emerged from the sharp edges of real practice — and they are the reason Loadbearer behaves as a recommender, not a decider.
Every list, every taxonomy, every form field is configurable by the project. The system ships sensible UK defaults — JCT 2024 clause families, NEC4 compensation event categories, the Building Safety Act gateway sequence — and allows the project to add, rename, retire and version them. A construction project that cannot extend its own taxonomies is a system that cannot survive contact with the site.
Some companies sign off in a meeting. Some sign off in a Microsoft document. Some sign off only on a wet signature. Loadbearer does not impose one workflow — it is the substrate underneath the workflow each company already runs. The signing surface is configurable; the audit trail is not.
Accountability is built up through a project's lifecycle, not bolted on at handover. Sign-offs cascade — a clause linked to a work package, linked to an activity, linked to a person, linked to a date. Each step is auditable in isolation; the chain is auditable end-to-end. The golden thread, by construction.
The platform may draft a notice, propose a delay attribution, recommend a clause citation. It does not issue, accept or commit anything on behalf of the project. Every output passes through a competent person who signs and approves the decision before it carries effect. The user interface enforces this — there is no "AI auto-issue" toggle, anywhere.
Site teams will not learn one more system. Loadbearer has to be the easiest place to do the work that already exists — RAMS, snags, EWNs, RFIs, daily diaries — or it does not survive week two. Every page is designed for the person whose dashboard it is, not for the executive whose deck it appears in.
Where current legislation conflicts with a configured project preference, current legislation wins. The Building Safety Act, the CDM Regulations 2015, the Construction Act, GDPR — these are not toggles. They are absolute and total priorities, baked into the platform's enforcement layer, with version-controlled mappings to clause and statute references.
The system itself cannot be held responsible. Therefore everything it generates — every notice, every delay attribution, every clause citation, every onboarding cascade — carries the explicit qualifier that it must be reviewed and approved by a competent person before it carries effect. This is not a footnote. It is a banner that appears on every page of the platform, every time.
"These principles are not negotiable. They are the bar. If a feature breaks one of them, the feature does not ship — the principle stays." Locked, Phase 1 — v1.5 onward · Decision Ledger entry P-01 / P-07
How they translate to product