Insect species complexes are often treated as delimitation problems whose endpoint is a set of species boundaries. That framing collapses distinct inferential tasks and can obscure whether an observed signal represents overlooked species, population structure, hybridization, marker-specific resolution, a legacy naming problem, or merely an identification problem. This article develops a stage-based taxonomic architecture separating discovery, hypothesis generation, delimitation, independent validation, diagnosis and nomenclature, and post-description reassessment. Discovery is deliberately bidirectional, allowing both hidden diversity and excessive prior splitting. Delimitation is separated from statistical clustering by explicit consideration of gene flow, spatial continuity, model assumptions, preprocessing, and marker choice. Independent validation requires partly nonredundant evidence rather than repetition of the same signal. Naming remains connected to diagnoses, types, and existing nomenclature, while materially new evidence can reopen a completed description. The proposed stage-gate logic treats return to an earlier stage, synonymy, and unresolved status as legitimate outcomes. It is an organizational synthesis, not an empirically validated universal protocol, and requires prospective testing before claims of improved accuracy, efficiency, or stability are warranted.
