Thank you for taking the time to explain this! I had bookmarked the above comment in the hopes that someone would.
The radius of curvature is 1/|K| where one chooses a curvature scalar -- Kretschmann, Gauss, others may apply -- and finds a matching "kissing circle" (osculation is kissing). Here's an example in 2d, \rho is the radius of curvature and we're asking about the radius of curvarure at P on the curve AB: <https://undergroundmathematics.org/glossary/curvature/images...> (Two other examples <https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...>, <https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...>). For a point on the surface of a shell, we'd use an osculating sphere, and so on in additional dimensions.