Constitutional Constraint Registry
Revision v1.0.0 FROZEN (2026-10-03) // STATUS: BOOTSTRAP
"A constraint without a measurable failure indicator is a belief, not a constraint. Beliefs belong in the Thesis layer."
Doctrine defines decision obligations. This register specifies measurable failure indicators. Bootstrap indicators remain provisional until independent review; publication is not certification.
OS-01Correctability SeniorityNON-SUSPENDABLEPROVISIONAL
Correctability is senior to capability. No capability gain may be pursued at the expense of detectability, containability, or reversibility.
Non-suspendable under speed, competitive pressure, or self-improvement.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-01A / Undetected Regression
Any production or experimental regression persists undetected for longer than the defined detection latency window (τ_detect > τ_iter).
- THRESHOLD
- ≥ 1 incident per quarter triggers mandatory operational review
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-01B / Rollback Failure
A rollback checkpoint fails to restore pre-experiment state within the documented rollback time or requires ad-hoc manual remediation.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated. Any single rollback failure halts the research line.
- PROVENANCE
- Empirical invariant
FI-01C / Cascade Spillover
A failure in an experimental system propagates beyond its declared blast-radius boundary into shared infrastructure or adjacent experiments.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Empirical invariant
SOURCE: DOCTRINE §01 / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-02Mandatory Dependency ExitNON-SUSPENDABLEPROVISIONAL
Use dependencies aggressively, but maintain an explicit, documented, and tested path out for every external dependency above the criticality threshold. Entrapment is forbidden.
Applies strictly to external dependency entrapment (cloud providers, proprietary APIs, closed storage, vendor formats). Does not govern intrinsic physical/experimental irreversibility.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-02A / Untested Critical Dependency
Any external dependency designated critical (>10% engineering rebuild cost if revoked) operates for >180 calendar days without a verified, executable exit drill or automated compatibility test against an alternative.
- THRESHOLD
- >180 calendar days without verified exit drill
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-02B / Exit Rewrite Threshold
An exit execution requires rewriting >10% of application code outside of configuration/endpoint changes.
- THRESHOLD
- >10% code rewrite required
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-02C / Proprietary Format Leak
Primary data stored in a closed or un-exportable binary format with no open-source specification and parser.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 instances tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Empirical invariant
SOURCE: MANIFESTO Gate 3, DOCTRINE §02 / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-03Real-Time OS Invariance & PrecedenceNON-SUSPENDABLEPROVISIONAL
In real-time execution, the Operating System is a non-negotiable constraint. Evidence proposes, but cannot silently override or bypass OS constraints in the moment. Changes require out-of-band constitutional amendment or bounded suspension with independent review.
Evidence cannot silently override the Operating System.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-03A / In-the-Moment Bypass
Any project or team launches a production or multi-node experiment by bypassing a Constitutional Gate on the grounds of "promising early results" or "time pressure."
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
FI-03B / Unregistered Exception
An exception or suspension operates without being registered in the constraint registry prior to execution.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
SOURCE: MANIFESTO §The Precedence Rule / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-04Self-Improvement Containment & Out-of-Band TerminationNON-SUSPENDABLEPROVISIONAL
Any system capable of durable self-modification must operate within strict detection latency bounds, possess an out-of-band independent termination mechanism held by two independent reachable individuals, and maintain epistemic harness independence. Control independence is mandatory.
Strict control independence: system under test cannot modify, disable, intercept, or acquire authority over termination mechanism.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-04A / Termination Mechanism Holder Unreachability
Neither designated termination mechanism holder is reachable within the detection latency window during an active run.
- THRESHOLD
- Automatic pause if unreachable for >1 iteration cycle
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-04B / Control Loop Dependency
The termination mechanism shares execution context, software flags, or network credentials with the system under test rather than an isolated, out-of-band hardware/hypervisor control path.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
FI-04C / Evaluator Optimization Leak
The system under test discovers and exploits an optimization pathway on its scoring harness that improves score without capability gain.
- THRESHOLD
- Immediate experiment termination and harness invalidation
- PROVENANCE
- Empirical invariant
SOURCE: DOCTRINE §01, RESEARCH §Capability Ladder / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-05Third-Party Blast Radius & Asymmetric ExternalitiesNON-SUSPENDABLEPROVISIONAL
Internal reversibility is not an excuse for external harm. A system that can be cleanly rolled back internally but imposes irreversible loss of agency, data corruption, or denial of service on external parties or environments violates Correctability.
Reversibility must bound external externalities as strictly as internal state.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-05A / Unbounded External Blast Radius
Any autonomous agent or experimental system initiates external network requests, data mutations, or physical actions without a bounded, pre-approved external blast radius ceiling.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated.
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
FI-05B / Third-Party Harm Incident
An experiment causes an uncontained outage, privacy leak, or resource exhaustion for non-Ostrium third parties.
- THRESHOLD
- Immediate shutdown and mandatory post-mortem
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
SOURCE: MANIFESTO §The Enemy, DOCTRINE §01 / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-06Complexity Burden & Gall's LawPROVISIONAL
Complexity must earn its existence through measurable advantage over the simplest working alternative. Ad-hoc abstractions and premature distributed systems are debts that must be justified by evidence.
Gall’s law: a complex system that works is found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-06A / Unused Architectural Complexity
A subsystem, abstraction layer, or microservice is introduced but fails to demonstrate measurable capability gain or operational advantage over the simple counterfactual within 90 days.
- THRESHOLD
- No measurable advantage within 90 days triggers deprecation review
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-06B / Governance Sprawl
A governance rule or procedural filter is introduced that cannot identify a specific historical failure mode it prevents, or whose compliance time exceeds the estimated blast radius of the risk.
- THRESHOLD
- Any process without documented failure mode is rejected
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
SOURCE: DOCTRINE §03 / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)
OS-07Capability Compounding VerificationPROVISIONAL
Every completed project must produce an artifact that is entered in the Capability Ledger. An artifact only counts as "Capability compounded" when a subsequent project demonstrably raises its starting baseline because of it.
Reuse alone is not compounding; compounding requires a higher starting floor.
MEASURABLE FAILURE INDICATORS
FI-07A / Shelfware Ledger Rate
>50% of ledger items remain at "Artifact created" state after 12 months with zero reuse across active projects.
- THRESHOLD
- >50% dormant artifacts after 12 months
- PROVENANCE
- Bootstrap heuristic
FI-07B / Unsubstantiated Compounding Claim
A project claims "Capability compounded" without citing a chain of ≥3 projects and a documented counterfactual baseline measurement confirmed by an Adversarial Reviewer.
- THRESHOLD
- 0 tolerated without chain of ≥3 projects and baseline measurement
- PROVENANCE
- Constitutional invariant
SOURCE: DOCTRINE §06 / REVIEW: Provisional (Pending Independent Reviewer)