One engine, many codes
Cricket is where we started, not what we are. Every code we have looked at runs the same shape — a governing rulebook, a competition layer, then local conditions, all amended over time. The sport-specific part is the documents you load; everything else is the same engine. Each code stresses a different kind of reasoning, which is exactly why the same engine is worth building across all of them.
Cricket
The MCC Laws of Cricket sit above an association's by-laws and playing conditions, which sit above the conditions for a particular grade. Wet weather, over rates, eligibility, forfeits and finals qualification generate the same arguments in every competition, every weekend. This is where the product was built and proven, with the Cricket Tasmania Premier League.
Australian rules football
A national rulebook, a state league interpretation, then league-specific by-laws on player points, permits, interchange and tribunal process. Tribunal precedent is the stress case: a ruling today depends on how similar cases have been decided before.
Golf
The Rules of Golf are stable and heavily interpreted, but local rules, hard cards and competition conditions change per club and per event. The question is rarely 'what is the rule' — it is 'which local condition applies on this hole, in this event, today'.
Motorsport
A national sporting code, a category's technical and sporting regulations, then event supplementary regulations and bulletins issued during a meeting. Decisions are made under time pressure in the pits and stewards' room, where the current version of a regulation matters as much as its wording.
Other rules-governed bodies
Anything that governs by a layered, amended, written rulebook has the same problem: associations and member bodies, event sanctioning bodies, and codes of conduct or building and planning rules in local government. The engine does not care what the rules are about.
Working with a new code
We would rather build the next code alongside a real governing body than guess at it. If you run a competition and your rules generate the same arguments every season, we would like to hear how they are structured and where they break down.
Tell us about your rulebook