Common Codes Skill Hierarchy

Working paper. This paper introduces the Common Codes naming hierarchy: 21 Clusters of transferable skills, bundled under 6 Meta-skills, with Skill Families and Facets beneath. The hierarchy sits on top of the two-axis geometry of Focus and Mode established in Sattler (2026), giving names to the regions that geometry identifies. Five design commitments shape it: identity-rule-driven grouping (verb-and-subject pairings, not occupations or sectors); transferable human skills only (separating domain knowledge and personal qualities); non-rivalrous with existing frameworks (every skill in ESCO, the WEF Global Skills Taxonomy, and the other source frameworks locates onto the hierarchy without the source framework needing to migrate); parsimony at the top with surface area below; and a strengths-based default. The result is a shared, legible substrate that lets skills frameworks talk to each other without flattening anyone’s vocabulary, and which gives proper surface area to work (care, coordination, resilience, documentation) that has long been collapsed into a single “soft skills” bin.