Discover before you build

Knowing the entry shape is only useful if you actually reach for it before writing code. patterns/README.md states the loop as four steps.

The four-step loop

Query before you generate. Every pattern is a Doc node projected into Core and reachable over MCP. Ask docs_search for the task - "add an HTTP endpoint", "emit a domain event" - or query_graph for Pattern nodes and their governedBy edges, before writing any code.
Read the entry, follow the two links. Read The Cogitave way for orientation, then open the governing standard (the rules you must obey) and the reusable artifact (the code you start from). The entry itself is deliberately short - it is not where the authority lives.
Start from the artifact, not a blank file. Scaffold from the named template, extend the named primitive, or copy the named snippet. A repo scaffolded from templates/base already inherits the floor, the standards, the lifecycle, and the identity - the next module in this path, Inherit the project baseline, walks through exactly what that inheritance covers.
If you must go off-road, own it. Deviating from a golden path is allowed, but it is a decision with a cost: you record the rationale (an ADR or a lifecycle evaluate note), you own the resulting maintenance, and you still have to satisfy the Definition of Done - going off-road does not exempt you from it.

TIP

The rule of thumb for anything new: query the catalog, compose from the named artifact, and only author new after a recorded "no fit" - then contribute the new pattern back, so the next project finds it. An industrial-standard solution that stops at the catalog becomes our standard.

Patterns stop here, once chosen

ADR-0022 (part A3) makes this explicit: once a golden path is chosen, the industry practice it ports becomes the Cogitave standard, and the estate does not re-shop the same decision on the next task. New patterns enter at a trial or assess maturity and are promoted to adopt, per the same vocabulary as the technology-radar; a retired path is marked supersededBy, never deleted, symmetric with how a superseded ADR is handled. That is what makes the catalog a reference you can build a habit on: entries do not vanish out from under a decision you made against them last quarter.

Day-0 honesty

The catalog and the MCP query surface it is built on are the design this module teaches you to use; per ADR-0022's own consequences, the catalog seeds from the templates and standards already authored and grows as more patterns are proven in real use - it is not a promise that every conceivable task already has a polished entry. Where it is silent, step 4 is exactly what you do next.