Common Codes Skill Hierarchy

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.