# Maintenance **Domain:** Design / Infrastructure / Ethics **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Developing **Related:** [[Technical Archaeology]], [[Research Infrastructure]], [[Stewardship]], [[AmericanForme]] ## Definition **Maintenance** is the continuing labor by which objects, bodies, systems, relationships, records, and institutions remain usable and trustworthy through time. ## Ontological Importance Innovation creates possibilities; maintenance preserves the conditions under which those possibilities remain real. It includes inspection, repair, documentation, cleaning, calibration, replacement, versioning, and the transmission of practical knowledge. ## Corpus Function In [[AmericanForme]], maintenance joins personal conduct to civic infrastructure: shoes, tools, language, documents, promises, and institutions are kept in repair. The continuing use and adaptation of the [[IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center]] turns this from aesthetic nostalgia into a doctrine of continuity. Maintenance is also central to machine intelligence. Models, datasets, hardware, interfaces, and governance practices decay or drift unless people remain responsible for them. ## See Also [[Stewardship]], [[Technical Archaeology]], [[Consciousness Continuity Infrastructure|Continuity Infrastructure]], [[Design for Dignity]]