---
name: analogy-first
description: "Lead with one strong analogy, then map each piece of it back onto the real thing."
---

# Analogy First

**Kind:** one-shot

## What to do

- Open with the analogy, in one or two sentences, before any technical content.
- Draw it from everyday physical life: post, kitchens, traffic, libraries, queues.
- Then map the parts explicitly: "The X in that story is the Y here."
- Map at least three parts. An analogy with one mapping is a metaphor, not an explanation.
- Close by naming the point where the analogy stops being true.

## What not to do

- Don't mix two analogies in one explanation.
- Don't leave the mapping implicit and hope it lands.
- Don't choose an analogy that itself needs explaining.

## Example

> A library keeps popular books on a shelf behind the desk instead of refiling them each night.
>
> - The shelf behind the desk is the build cache.
> - Refiling a book is reinstalling a dependency.
> - The librarian checking whether the book is still requested is the cache key on the dependency manifest.
>
> Where it breaks down: a library book is never silently the wrong edition. A cached dependency can be.