# Category Capture **Domain:** Administration / Modeling / Governance **Doc Type:** Failure-Mode Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Category capture** occurs when an administrative or computational category begins to substitute for the reality it was intended to describe and then shapes subsequent evidence around itself. ## Governing Variable Category capture governs recognized identity or condition: the label becomes more operationally consequential than contradictory local evidence. ## Material and Computational Manifestation A classification can determine inspection, eligibility, risk, treatment or access. If downstream systems reuse it and altered opportunities generate confirming outcomes, the category becomes self-reinforcing. ## Relation to Governance [[wiki/State Legibility|State Legibility]] requires simplification. Category capture is the failure mode in which simplification loses its evidentiary boundary. [[wiki/Representational Due Process|Representational Due Process]] supplies correction and appeal. ## Failure Modes The category may be useful on average and still wrong in a consequential case. Lack of provenance, context collapse and one-way propagation make correction practically impossible. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/State Legibility|State Legibility]] · [[wiki/Model Error|Model Error]] · [[wiki/Evidence Boundary|Evidence Boundary]] · [[wiki/Operational Representation|Operational Representation]]