Commitment · Structural

A declared path must be walkable

adopted a build gate proves it

Declaring a relationship is not the same as carrying one. Where the model leans on a kind to hold something up, every row of that kind states the relationships the kind exists to carry - or, where the model has a way to say that an input does not yet exist, declares that instead. And where a claim rests on a sequence of steps rather than a single one, that path is walkable end to end by at least one row. A relationship declared across the registry and asserted nowhere is a failure of the model, not a thin line on a map.

What goes wrong without it

Every other check asks whether a relationship is well formed: typed, bounded, licensed, inverted. None asks whether anything travels it. So the model could pass every check with a verb declared for thirty-eight kinds and asserted by none, and say nothing - which is what happened. A reader meeting that has no way to tell a deliberate absence from an oversight, and neither does the author six months on. The distinction is schema completeness against population completeness: the first was already enforced here and the second had no instrument at all. It matters most where a claim is a chain rather than a link. Performance asserted from delivery alone, with no step that reaches a person, is the specific failure measurement standards exist to prevent, and it is invisible to a check that only reads one edge at a time.

What proves it — 4

Each is a gate the build runs: a check inside a ring, a whole ring, or an eval beside them. A build stops at the first that refuses.

registry integrityspine integrity
Every row of a kind the model leans on states the relationships that kind exists to carry, so a relationship declared across the registry and asserted nowhere is a failure rather than a thin line on a map.
registry integrityjourney integrity
Every journey begins at one of its own positions and carries at least one legal move, its positions sit on a contiguous run of rungs, and every position either has a move out or realises a condition another journey leaves from, so no journey is a picture and no position is a dead end.
registry integrityrow participation
Every row of a registry kind is touched by at least one relationship besides its own grounding, and every vocabulary is read by at least one filled relationship, so a record or construct nothing relates to, and a set of terms nothing uses, are failures rather than quiet rows.
registry integritykernel integrity
Every kind and relationship the kernel names is one the registries declare: a spine's verbs are verbs its kind states or is reached by, the metric derivation names specifications that exist, the contract-status escape names kinds that exist, and the grounding reaches kinds that exist, and the machine's kinds and verbs and the instrumenting kind are kinds and verbs the registries declare.

Derived from — 2

W3CShapes Constraint Language (SHACL)
Media Rating CouncilOutcomes and Data Quality Standards

Kinds it licenses

Campaign Goals Intelligence KPIs Metrics Signals Tactics Consumer States Journeys Journey States Journey Transitions

Relationships it licenses

triggers event · contains tactic · measured by · acted by consumer · answers goal · is evaluated by · has metric · serves goal · computed from formula · takes as numerator · counts in numerator · informs intelligence · uses channel · uses surface · realizes consumer state · belongs to journey · begins at · triggered by

Where this model stands

Seven kinds carry a spine: a metric says how it is derived or declares that its source does not yet exist; a KPI answers to a goal and is carried by a metric; a signal informs a standing question; a question area sits between its goal and its metrics; a goal is carried by a KPI and raises a question; a tactic runs somewhere; a campaign does something and is measured.

Paths the model leans on are declared as the questions the graph answers and walked there on every build; the spines here ask the narrower question of each kind, whether every row states what the kind exists to carry.

A spine states what must hold, never how many rows hold it, so the check cannot drift out of date as the model grows.

A condition on the ladder is a position in at least one journey, and a journey has at least one legal move, so neither the ladder nor a journey can quietly become a picture.

Every journey position either has a move out or realises a condition that a position in another journey leaves from, so the lifecycle has no dead end: a person can always be carried onward, if only by another journey picking them up at the same condition.

Every row of a registry kind is touched by at least one relationship besides its own grounding, and every vocabulary is read by at least one. A term a source enumerates may stand unused, because it is admitted as a member of a set; a record or a construct nothing relates to may not, because it is a distinction the model declares and never makes.

What the model must carry is declared in registry/kernel.json, apart from the law, which names no kind or verb: the grounding, the spines, the campaign and semantic patterns, the metric derivation, the contract-status escape and the hedging verbs. FND-026 holds every name in it to the kinds and verbs registries, so a requirement cannot outlive the thing it requires.

What it does not claim

A path is satisfied by one walkable instance, not by every row of the starting kind. Requiring each row to walk it would force an actor onto aggregate delivery events, which RUL-004 exists to prevent.

RUL-023