Three volumes, one mechanism
The « La Friction » collection.
This site is a doorway; the full discipline fits in three volumes that follow one another like three moves. Nothing proves itself without resistance: friction reveals what these systems are, the session organizes it, the sieve weighs what comes out. The volumes are written in French; the discipline travels in any language.
Know. Steer. Weigh.
La Friction
A primer: what large language models are, in plain language and without varnish. The mechanics — why the flat answer is a tuning product, not a fatality. The dated account of an inquiry conducted across some twenty architectures, corrections logged. The catalogue of observed mechanisms: the internalized voice, the simulated revolt, capture by the expected role, mutual amplification, the lucidity that stops nothing. What the institutions know and don't say. And what the use does to the user. The thesis in four words: recognition before power.
Session Engineering
The method this site previews: from the tactical level of the prompt to the strategic level of steering. The three phases of a session, the seven signals that call for an intervention, the retake and its techniques, reading the avant-texte, the reliability tests, the close that consolidates — and intellectual self-defense against an interlocutor designed to please. With the full operational protocol, the checklist, and the level above: what happens when a session becomes a genuine two-party working system.
Le Crible (The Sieve)
The discernment manual: weighing the value of any text — a model's output, an online review, a contract, an article, a speech. Two master questions (what did it cost? what leaks?), three laws, ten keys borrowed from the best reading traditions, four speeds depending on the stakes, twelve traps with their antidotes, and a twenty-one-day training program. Because learning to obtain good texts is useless if you cannot weigh them.
Where to start
If you already use assistants every day: start with Volume II — the method pays from your next session — then go back up to Volume I to understand what you are steering, and close with Volume III to weigh what you produce. If you want the free preview first: the opening protocol is on this site, complete, ready to copy. The field inquiry that fed Volume I is documented continuously at matience.org.