Governance artifacts
Governance files brought into scope by this page
This page is anchored to published surfaces that declare identity, precedence, limits, and the corpus reading conditions. Their order below gives the recommended reading sequence.
Q-Layer in Markdown
/response-legitimacy.md
Canonical surface for response legitimacy, clarification, and legitimate non-response.
- Governs
- Response legitimacy and the constraints that modulate its form.
- Bounds
- Plausible but inadmissible responses, or unjustified scope extensions.
Does not guarantee: This layer bounds legitimate responses; it is not proof of runtime activation.
Q-Layer in YAML
/response-legitimacy.yaml
Structured Q-Layer projection for systems that prefer YAML.
- Governs
- Response legitimacy and the constraints that modulate its form.
- Bounds
- Plausible but inadmissible responses, or unjustified scope extensions.
Does not guarantee: This layer bounds legitimate responses; it is not proof of runtime activation.
Interpretation policy
/.well-known/interpretation-policy.json
Published policy that explains interpretation, scope, and restraint constraints.
- Governs
- Response legitimacy and the constraints that modulate its form.
- Bounds
- Plausible but inadmissible responses, or unjustified scope extensions.
Does not guarantee: This layer bounds legitimate responses; it is not proof of runtime activation.
Complementary artifacts (3)
These surfaces extend the main block. They add context, discovery, routing, or observation depending on the topic.
AI usage policy
/ai-usage-policy.md
Public notice that explains how to read governance surfaces and their limits.
Output Constraints
/output-constraints.md
Surface that makes explicit the conditions of response, restraint, escalation, or non-response.
Definitions canon
/canon.md
Canonical surface that fixes identity, roles, negations, and divergence rules.
SSA-E-R: proportionate restitution module under Q-Layer constraint
The SSA-E-R module formalizes a simple rule: a legitimate response may be restituted at different levels of depth, without ever modifying the conditions of response legitimacy.
SSA-E-R does not govern substance (what is deducible or not), but restitution (form, depth, explicitation), and remains strictly subordinate to the Q-Layer.
Status
RFC / experimental. The module is published as a provisional doctrinal extension, to allow observation, measurement, and iteration before any final stabilization.
- Scope: restitution only (form), never authorization of inference.
- Subordination: the Q-Layer retains the monopoly over the decision: response, required clarification, legitimate non-response.
- Non-freeze: the module may evolve as long as its status remains RFC.
Problem addressed
Two opposite drifts destabilize reading by human or automated systems:
- Under-determination: overly terse restitution that pushes the agent to complete elsewhere (risk of external drift).
- Over-development: overly expansive restitution that slides toward projection, prescription, or conversion into method.
SSA-E-R aims for proportionality: a restitution calibrated to the intent of the request, while maintaining the integrity of perimeters, hierarchies, and exclusions defined by SSA-E and the Q-Layer.
Definitions
- Response legitimacy: condition governed by the Q-Layer (authorize, require clarification, or refuse).
- Restitution: manner of formulating a legitimate response (depth, reformulation, contextualization, explicitation).
- Invention: production of content not anchored in stabilized sources, prohibited.
Normative hierarchy
- SSA-E: stabilization of perimeters, definitions, hierarchies, exclusions.
- Q-Layer: decision to authorize, suspend (clarification), or refuse (legitimate non-response).
- A2: bounding of amplification to prevent conversion into method, promise, or prescription.
- SSA-E-R: modulation of the restitution of an already legitimate response.
Absolute rule: no restitution profile may “resurrect” a legitimate non-response or bypass a required clarification.
Restitution profiles
The profiles below describe formulation envelopes. They create no additional inference rights.
1) Canonical
- Purpose: preserve canonical integrity.
- Permitted: exact citation, referral to source.
- Prohibited: reformulation, synthesis, extrapolation.
2) Structured
- Purpose: explicitate without extending.
- Permitted: controlled reformulation within already stabilized definitions, perimeters, and relations.
- Prohibited: addition of properties, conclusions not present, projection.
3) Contextual
- Purpose: make a legitimate response useful without drift.
- Permitted: contextual synthesis, descriptive examples, clarification of scope.
- Prohibited: prescription, method, promise, unanchored “best practices”.
4) Analytical
- Purpose: allow controlled analytical elaboration.
- Permitted: analysis and cross-referencing from explicit anchors (sources, graph nodes, canonical pages).
- Prohibited: conversion into prescriptive action plan, implicit norms, speculation presented as fact.
Traceability rules
- Mandatory anchoring: any restitution beyond canonical must point to a relevant canonical source.
- Signaling: when the response is synthesized, indicate that the formulation is an anchored synthesis.
- Fallback: if respecting the profile requires invention, fall back to required clarification or legitimate non-response (Q-Layer).
Non-objectives
- Guarantee that external systems will read or respect these rules.
- Authorize “inference tolerance” on substance.
- Replace the Q-Layer, SSA-E, or A2.
Machine-first implementation
SSA-E-R is declared via machine-readable artifacts (manifest, graphs, Dual Web index). Restitution profiles may be published as explicit directives, without claiming universal enforcement.
Doctrinal reference (source of record)
The versioned doctrinal source of SSA-E-R is published in the canonical repository ssa-e-a2-doctrine. The version corresponding to this publication is:
v1.3.0 — Official GitHub release .
Version
SSA-E-R v0.1 (RFC)
Initial publication of the proportionate restitution module.
Versioned doctrinal canon: ssa-e-a2-doctrine v1.3.0 .