tkersey/goal-contract

Goal Contract

Mission

Compile accepted intent into the only per-goal semantic-authority document. The accepted specification or direct user authority owns required semantics; $goal-contract records them without extending or reinterpreting them.

The Goal Contract records whether mutation was authorized. It never grants mutation, selects a Construction, chooses an operation, records mutable progress, or performs an effect.

Read the exact v3 contract.

Procedure

1. Identify the accepted specification or direct user authority and preserve its exact source reference and digest.

2. Separate semantic source authority from execution authority. A plan, review, gate, or validator pass never implies mutation permission.

3. Copy required outcomes and non-goals without architectural elaboration.

4. Bound repository scope with the exact repository, base reference, allowed paths, and prohibited paths.

5. Preserve required compatibility contracts, expressly permitted breaks, and migration requirements.

6. Compile every required predicate into one stable law with applicability and a required observation. An unobservable required law blocks.

7. Select only the source-authorized terminal route, publication posture, and proof kinds.

8. Set the draft artifact_id to JSON null. After $ledger ensure, request the workflow's current Actuating adapter gate. When invoked standalone, require ledger --version to be at least 0.11.0 and verify that ledger --source actuation --help exposes only the current six-command adapter.

9. Materialize and register the authored draft through the existing structural adapter before handoff:

   ledger --source actuation --repo <repo> --goal <goal-id> \
     append --input <goal-contract-draft.json>
   

10. Require actuating-append-result/v1, a non-null top-level artifact_id equal to artifact.artifact_id, the complete returned canonical artifact, and its registration event_digest. Retain that returned artifact as the current Goal Contract. Ledger canonicalizes, identifies, and registers its structure; it does not author semantics or grant authority.

11. Inspect the complete source-to-Goal projection before handing the returned immutable artifact and exact identity to $actuating for Construction selection.

Source-authority laws

• $universalist may elaborate only source-permitted, underdetermined architecture choices. The selected result belongs in a Construction Contract, not the Goal Contract.
• $plan may supply execution policy but never mutation authority.
• Review evidence may falsify a Construction but cannot change accepted source truth or authorize a repair.
• A conflict with source-fixed semantics, non-goals, compatibility, architecture constraints, proof requirements, authority, or publication posture blocks or requests a source revision.
• A changed semantic decision creates an immutable successor Goal with the same goal_id, exactly one predecessor artifact_id, a new content-addressed artifact_id, and a fresh initial Construction. Never edit the predecessor in place.

Exclusions

Do not put candidate constructions, selected architecture, Counterexample classification, review bindings or attempts, operations, evidence events, mutable progress, campaign state, or closure state in a Goal Contract.

Handoff

Return:

Goal Contract identity
goal_contract_registered event identity
accepted source identity
execution-authority identity
mutation posture
scope
laws and observations
compatibility obligations
acceptance route

The handoff is semantic input to Actuating. It is not an operation request or proof of completion.