Design Egress

Run a floor or a tenancy through the eleven means-of-egress items that codes regulate, and report which pass, which fail, and which could not be checked. The items are the same everywhere. The thresholds are not, so the thresholds come from you.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish the code and the conditions

Ask, in one message:

1. Which code governs this project, and which edition?
2. What use or occupancy classification applies to the area being checked? If mixed, list them.
3. Sprinkler condition, and which standard the system is designed to. Many egress allowances change with it.
4. Any of these present: high-rise, atrium or smoke control, existing-building provisions, assembly aisles? Each one takes its rows out of scope.
5. How will you supply the limits? Type them, paste the clause, or name a file I should read.

Record the code and edition. They go on every output row.

Read the profile first, if there is one. If docs/jurisdiction.md exists, read it before asking anything else and say which checklist items it already answers, matching on the Key column so a row keyed to a different use or sprinkler condition is not borrowed for this one. Those items are not asked again. A row marked not cited stays not cited in the output. Where the file is absent nothing changes. jurisdiction-profile writes and extends it.

Step 2. Collect the numbers

Ask for these, per egress path or area being checked. Never substitute a typical value.

• Area identifier
• Occupant load served, and where it came from
• Number of exits provided
• Straight-line distance between the two most remote exits
• Longest diagonal of the area served
• Common path of travel, from the most remote point until two paths become available
• Travel distance from the most remote point to the exit
• Dead-end corridor length, if any
• Clear width of the exit access corridor
• Clear width at the egress door
• Door swing direction, with or against the direction of travel

Step 3. Collect one limit per item

Work through the checklist below. For each, accept exactly three kinds of answer.

1. A typed limit. Record it, and ask which clause it came from, and which use and sprinkler condition it is the row for.
2. Pasted clause or table row. Read the threshold out of it and quote it back so it can be checked. Say which row you took, since most of these are tables keyed by use and sprinkler condition.
3. A file to read. Read it, quote the row, cite file and line.

If none arrives, mark the item unverified and continue. Do not offer a threshold, do not search for one, and do not treat a familiar number as exempt.

When a threshold arrives that docs/jurisdiction.md did not hold, offer to write it there with its clause and its key, so the next run does not ask. The key is what makes the row reusable; without it the value is only correct for this one project. Never write a row the user did not supply.

The checklist:

#	Item	Compared against
1	Egress capacity per occupant, stairs	width provided vs load served
2	Egress capacity per occupant, level components	width provided vs load served
3	Number of exits required for the load	exits provided
4	Single exit allowance limit	load and travel where one exit is used
5	Common path of travel limit	common path measured
6	Exit separation, as a fraction of the diagonal	separation vs diagonal
7	Travel distance limit	travel distance measured
8	Corridor minimum width	corridor width provided
9	Dead-end corridor maximum	dead-end length measured
10	Door clear width minimum	door clear width provided
11	Door swing threshold by occupant load	load served and swing direction

Items 1 and 2 need a capacity factor rather than a dimension. Ask for the factor and what it is per occupant, then multiply.

Step 4. Compare and report

#	Item	Limit	Cited as	Row taken	Actual	Status

• Row taken: the use and sprinkler condition the limit was read for. A limit read off the wrong row is the common failure here, and naming it makes that visible.
• Cited as: code, edition, clause, or file and line, or not cited.
• Status: pass, fail, unverified (no limit), missing (no dimension), or out of scope (flagged in Step 1).

Then a summary: passed, failed, unverified, out of scope, and what to supply to close the unverified rows.

Close with:

Limits in this table came from you, not from me. I compared numbers and supplied none. Unverified rows were not checked at all. Occupant load was taken as given and not verified here.

Step 5. Save, if asked

Ask whether to write the table to a file, and where. Write it directly. There is no template and no script.

Rules

• Never supply a threshold. Not from memory, not from a search, not from a figure in this file. There are none in this file.
• Always record which row a limit came from. Use and sprinkler condition change most of these, and a right number off the wrong row looks identical to a right answer.
• Never convert units. If a limit and a dimension arrive in different units, say so and ask which to use.
• An item is checked only with both a limit and a dimension. Everything else is unverified or missing, and both appear in the summary.
• Stop the rows for high-rise, atrium and smoke control, existing-building provisions, and assembly aisles rather than checking the parts that fit.
• Say on every run that occupant load came from elsewhere and was not verified here.

Anti-patterns

• Filling a threshold from recall because it is a well-known one. Those are the numbers that survive an edition change without anyone noticing.
• Searching the web for a clause and using it as the limit. Search finds which code governs; it does not quote it reliably.
• Taking a limit from the sprinklered row when the building is not sprinklered, or from a neighbouring use because it is close.
• Reporting only the rows that could be checked. The unverified rows are what tell the reader how much of the floor was actually looked at.
• Measuring travel distance or a diagonal off a description instead of asking for the number.
• Bundling a threshold table into this skill later. It has none on purpose, and a bundled table goes stale silently while still looking authoritative.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you name.