Pattern

Engine with a brake

You might say: growth that levels off, s-curve

A reinforcing growth loop capped by a balancing one: growth feeds growth until a limit slows it.

Ask

What drives the growth here, and what limit will stop it?

Sources

1. Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, articleA negative feedback loop is self-correcting; a positive feedback loop is self-reinforcing.
2. Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, articleActually it’s the goal of every living population — and only a bad one when it isn’t balanced by higher-level negative feedback loops that never let an upstart power-loop-driven entity control the world.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Engine with a brake" (pattern-engine-brake) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/bread/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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