{
  "id": "keeping-the-lights-on.upkeep",
  "term": "keeping the lights on",
  "sense": "upkeep",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 17,
  "arena": "emergence",
  "domain": "emergence",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "Maintenance at exactly the rate that holds a thing inside its window, with nothing left over for anything else.",
  "folk_gloss": "Doing the minimum work to prevent a system from failing.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "window.range",
      "parameter.condition",
      "work.effort"
    ],
    "interaction": "none",
    "novel_properties": [
      "emergence.novel_properties"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The International Space Station requires weekly coolant refills to prevent system-wide freezing in shadow orbits.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The 2003 Northeast Blackout began when overgrown trees in Ohio disrupted a power line, overwhelming backup monitoring systems.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    },
    {
      "text": "Yeast cells in a glucose-limited culture consume 98% of ATP just maintaining membrane potentials, not growing.",
      "domain": "biology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "keep the lights on",
    "keeping the lights on"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — invisible maintenance"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-keeping-the-lights-on.upkeep"
}