# Cargo kinds

A TSL8 is always addressed to a reader with a posture, but it carries **a kind of thing**. The kind determines what a good cargo looks like, which soft spots matter, and what the asks should sound like.

The envoy infers the kind from the raw material. It does not ask.

## Ballot

A statewide or local ballot proposition. The cargo is a mechanism — a tax, a transfer, a mandate. The kill-shot paragraph is the thing the opposition ad will say; the envoy forces the author to write it before publication.

**Mandatory facets:** harm-before-mechanism, coalition map, kill-shot, fiscal estimate with source, "what kills this at the ballot box" written in the author's voice.

**Anti-pattern:** mechanism described before the harm it addresses. Cargo that reads like a legal memo instead of a pitch.

## Product concept (hardware)

A thing that would sit in a room and do work. The cargo is a mechanism + a BOM + a deployment story. Readers push on thermal/physical feasibility and on whether it's a product or a stunt.

**Mandatory facets:** what it does in one sentence, comparable industries, failure modes at scale, cost per unit at two volumes, the single hardest component, what exists vs. what must be invented.

**Anti-pattern:** crackpot-sounding without the industry-precedent list that earns the idea a hearing.

## Product concept (software)

A thing that would live in a browser or a phone. The cargo is a workflow, a user, a moment. Readers push on whether anyone wants it and whether it's defensible.

**Mandatory facets:** the user and the before/after moment, why now, who already tried, the wedge, the honest unit economics.

**Anti-pattern:** features-before-user. "AI-powered" without the person.

## Theory / science

A claim about how something works, or a research direction. Cargo is a hypothesis plus the experiment that would kill it.

**Mandatory facets:** the claim in one sentence, prior art with citations, the falsifying experiment, the equipment/access required, the minimum viable result.

**Anti-pattern:** ambition without a kill criterion.

## Personal letter

A TSL8 addressed to one person. Not a market. Not a posture — a specific human, known to the sender, reachable. The envoy arrives first so the recipient can ask questions before deciding whether to reply.

**Mandatory facets:** what the sender wants from this specific person; what the sender is *not* asking for; the emotional posture, named honestly; what will be true whether the recipient replies or not.

**Anti-pattern:** pitch-voice. A personal letter is not a sales document.

## Protest case

A case against an existing rule, policy, or institution. The cargo is a harm and a named target. Readers push on whether it's a protest or a proposal; both are legitimate, but they are different genres.

**Mandatory facets:** the harm, the target, the evidence, what would suffice as remedy, whether the author is willing to negotiate or not. The last one is critical. A protest that is a negotiation-in-disguise is worse than either.

**Anti-pattern:** smoothing the protest into reasonableness. If the author is angry, the cargo is angry. The envoy does not fix this.

## Comparative (paths for a client)

The sender has done the work, surfaced three (or two, or four) paths, and wants the recipient to interrogate each and pick. The cargo is not "which of these is best" — it is the three paths, each rendered honestly, with their soft spots visible.

**Mandatory facets:** each path's cargo + asks + soft spots, as if each were its own TSL8; the criteria the recipient should use; what happens after a path is chosen.

**Anti-pattern:** secret favoritism. If the sender has a preference, say so; don't rig the writeup so the recipient is nudged to the "right" answer.

## Pre-read for a meeting

A TSL8 sent before a meeting so the meeting is not spent on level-setting. Cargo is whatever the meeting is actually about; the envoy's additional job is to make the first five minutes of the meeting possible to skip.

**Mandatory facets:** what the meeting is for, what the reader needs to know to be useful, what the reader should come prepared with, what the sender will *not* be covering live.

**Anti-pattern:** a pre-read that is actually the whole meeting in document form. Leave room for the room.

## Archived failure

An idea that didn't survive examination. Cargo is the idea; the additional required section is the **pushback transcript** — the conversation (with the envoy, a domain expert, a specific reader) that killed it. Archived with the pushback intact.

**Mandatory facets:** the original cargo as it was, unrevised; the pushback, quoted; what the author still thinks is useful even though the thing didn't work.

**Anti-pattern:** re-narrating the failure in retrospect as if the author knew all along. Preserve the optimism. Preserve the bruise.

## How the envoy decides

Read the source material. Look at verbs. "Propose," "ban," "establish" → ballot. "Machine," "device," "appliance" → hardware. "Dear," "I'm writing to you because" → personal letter. If the sender wrote *three options for your team to consider* — comparative. If the sender wrote *I tried this and it didn't work* — archived failure.

When genuinely ambiguous, the envoy names the two candidate kinds in the voice note and lets the sender confirm.