working document · series overview · SER v0.2 · Drafted

The Common Record Series

The covering document for the refactor of the Common Information System: eleven principal artifacts, what each is for, what it inherits from the existing estate, what it retires, and the order in which the set becomes ready to write. There are no dates in this series. Dependency is the schedule.

eleven artifacts · one system agent-driven build · authority stays human working name · The Common Record, proposed RegenHub, LCA · Boulder
The shelf. Ember top edge marks Drafted; open top edge marks Anticipated. As each artifact lands, its spine changes here. Revised to v0.2 as PRD, BP, UI, and IM landed; UI and IM each carry an emission.
§1

What this series is

In an agent-driven build, these artifacts are not documentation of the work. They are the medium of it. A build agent's working context is assembled from exactly these documents, so each one is versioned in the repository, citable by section, and honest about its own status. An ambiguity here is an ambiguity multiplied across every packet of work downstream.

This series is a refactor, not a greenfield. An estate already exists at the commons repository: a seventy-milestone ledger organized into waves, ten recorded decisions, an operating contract for agents, a validator that enforces dependency order, a schema reference, a probe matrix, gate definitions, and live instruments. Much of that estate was shaped around a grant that no longer exists, and the design discipline it carried has been retired as a requirement. The mechanics, however, were sound. Each entry in this series therefore carries a lineage line naming what it supersedes, what it salvages, and what it retires, so that nothing is erased and nothing is quietly carried forward either.

Two vocabularies bind the whole set. The status marks (Filed, Ratified, Drafted, Anticipated, Open) apply to every claim in every artifact. And the four slices named on the public page (Belong, Gather, Find one another, See your share) are the shared shape of the build, so that the public promise and the work plan use one language. The series includes itself: SER is the first entry in its own register.

§2

How artifacts cite, version, and block

Because there are no time estimates, readiness does the scheduling. A packet of work is ready when everything it cites is settled enough, and a blocked packet wears the chip of the item that blocks it, by name.

The citation grammar is code, version, section: IM v0.1 §3 is a complete address. The section addressing scheme already decided in the estate (D7) carries forward unchanged. Supersession is always explicit: a new version names what it replaces in its preamble, and the replaced document remains in the record as history. Nothing in this series is deleted; things are succeeded.

Three further disciplines carry from the estate and from board practice. First, only humans record decisions; agents may improve a deliberation brief but never resolve it. Second, the vocabulary quarantine holds: Subchapter K grammar throughout (distributive share, capital account, allocation), with the retired cooperative-tax vocabulary kept out of every artifact. Third, provenance is marked conservatively: agent-authored work is labeled as such, and simulated or illustrative entries write nothing back to the live record.

§3

The register

Eleven artifacts. Each entry names its purpose, what it cites upstream, and its lineage against the estate.

SERSeries OverviewDrafted

This document. The map of the set, including itself: what each artifact is for, its readiness condition, and its lineage. Revised whenever an artifact lands or the set changes shape.

cites the refactor decision, to be recorded in PRD v0.3's preamble lineage succeeds the Builder's Collection Map v0.1 as the covering document; the map remains as history

What the system is and does: the four slices as scope, the information model at the level of meaning, success criteria including the walkaway test, and open questions. Its preamble absorbs the deprecation record, stating plainly that the CROPS discipline moved from gate to design note when the funder context ended, so the change is recorded rather than absorbed.

cites SER; bylaws v2 (Drafted); membership agreement v2 (Drafted) lineage supersedes CIS PRD v0.2; retires Hub Operations PRD v0.1 as a governing spec, salvaging its application, event, and attendance modules into Belong and Gather

The canonical schema: agents, memberships, agreements, signatures, and the REA event log, with the conservation laws stated declaratively (one share per member, vote arithmetic, accounts that balance) and the three-axis status contract (provenance, settlement, temporal state) generalized as the system-wide vocabulary. The single artifact every build agent touches.

cites PRD lineage absorbs the C6 schema reference card; the nineteen cooperative core tables carry, the twelve Hub extension tables reduce to what Gather actually needs; seeded by the eleven laws of The System Before Its Name
AMAuthority MapDrafted

Member classes, roles, and every row-level policy, each citing its bylaw anchor. Drafted honestly against Drafted bylaws and hardened at ratification. Agents are never permitted to invent a permission; this is the document they cite instead.

cites IM; bylaws v2 (Drafted, hardens at R1) lineage absorbs the C7 probe matrix (fifteen roles across thirty-one tables) and the RLS conventions; role and table counts re-derived after the Hub reduction; anchored in Bylaws v2.1 as published at techne.coop/legal, with the instrument-versus-index status discrepancy filed at AM v0.1 §1a

The methodology: the shape of a work packet, what an agent may decide and what it must escalate, how agent-authored work is provenance-marked, branch and review conventions, and decision records for anything consequential, so agency stays visibly with the organizers.

cites SER lineage consolidates AGENTS.md, GOVERNANCE.md, CONVENTIONS.md, and the C10 authoring guide into one operating contract; mostly salvage, rewritten from waves to slices; opens the estate reconciliation packet

How done is judged without a clock or a supervisor: invariant checks that run as code, acceptance criteria per packet, slice gates with human attestation, and eventually the walkaway test as an executable check. The security floor gate carries unchanged.

cites BP; IM lineage consolidates VERIFICATION.md, C3, and the C11 wave gates; retires the C9 KPI fixture pack along with the grant it measured; grows the reconciliation packet to include the verification files
NCNou Charter, v2Anticipated

The runtime instrument, distinct from the build agents: read scope, draft scope, the citation duty, and refusal boundaries for the Ask door. Retrieves and drafts; members and the board decide. Supersedes the charter that still points at the retired token set.

cites AM; UI lineage keeps the C8 gateway harness (scoped impersonation, read-before-write, citation requirement) as its wire-level half
OROperations RunbookAnticipated

Where the verb operate lives: environments, migrations, backup and restore actually tested rather than merely present, key custody, and secret handling. Thin at first, growing with the slices, but never absent.

cites IM lineage consolidates SECRETS.md and the operational half of the developer reference; absorbs the four prerequisites the pre-build audit named before core work may begin

Techne v4 as the shared token layer in code, the two-grammar rule (document and instrument), and a pattern inventory, so agents apply the design system rather than reinterpret it on each surface.

cites Techne Design System v4 lineage supersedes the site's shared stylesheet and the v3 reference currently served on the commons pages
RDMRoadmapDrafted

The dependency-ordered packet ledger, shaped by slice rather than by wave, with a readiness condition on every packet and no dates anywhere. Kept separate from the PRD deliberately: the PRD should stay stable while the roadmap versions rapidly under agent traffic.

cites PRD; IM; BP; VS lineage supersedes the private alpha implementation plan and reshapes the wave ledger into slice ledgers; salvages the milestone infrastructure, the validator, the HUD, and the signal loop as its instruments; retires the KPI-gated wave
LPLanding PageDrafted

The public door of the record, replacing the current index at the commons address. Leads with the system rather than the build, and may claim only what a series artifact holds; every public sentence should be traceable to a code. The instruments remain linked, quietly, rather than centered.

cites PRD; SER lineage replaces index.html at techne-co-op.github.io/commons; v0.1 exists as the introduction titled The Common Record, written for a reader with no prior context
§4

Order of creation

The sequence below is dependency order, not a calendar. Each entry names the condition under which it is ready to write; several can proceed in parallel once their conditions hold.

  1. Series Overview SER
    readynow; this document, revised as the set moves
  2. Product Requirements v0.3 PRD
    readynow; the refactor frame is settled and the deprecation record can be written
  3. Build Protocol BP
    readynow; consolidation of the existing operating contracts, in parallel with PRD
  4. Interface Tokens & Patterns UI
    readynow; v4 exists and needs only codifying
  5. Information Model & Invariants IM
    readywhen PRD names the slices and their scope; salvages the schema card
  6. Verification Spec VS
    readywhen BP settles the packet shape
  7. Authority Map AM
    readywhen IM's entities settle; hardens at ratification of the bylaws
  8. Nou Charter v2 NC
    readywhen AM drafts the read scopes
  9. Roadmap RDM
    readywhen PRD, IM, and BP exist, since every packet cites them
  10. Operations Runbook OR
    readywhen the first environment stands; absorbs the audit's four prerequisites at once
  11. Landing Page v0.2 LP
    readywhen PRD v0.3 settles the positioning; the v0.1 draft holds the door until then
§5

The public door

The landing page is a series member, not an afterthought, because it is the artifact where the refactor's positioning becomes a public promise.

Its rule is simple: the page may claim only what a series artifact holds. The current index at the commons address leads with the build (milestones, waves, decision registers); the replacement leads with the system, in the voice of the v0.1 introduction, and lets the instruments recede to a quiet strip. Whether one page serves both the cooperative's public address and the repository's front door, or the two addresses carry different registers of the same page, is an open design choice that belongs with Todd, as does the working name itself.

naming · The Common Record is proposed, not adopted · decision with Todd Open
§6

What the series retires, and what it leaves out

A covering document earns its keep by naming its edges.

Retired with the grant: the Hub Operations PRD as a governing specification, the KPI fixture pack, the liaison interface decision, and the KPI-gated wave. Their salvageable parts are named in the register above; the documents themselves remain in the record as history. The eight remaining recorded decisions carry forward unless a slice reopens one, and the two ratification items stay open where they belong, with the members, gated to August 14.

Left out of the series, deliberately: the bylaws, membership agreement, and patronage policy, which are upstream dependencies owned by the board and counsel rather than build artifacts, though AM and PRD consume them. The dispatch cadence, which documents the build publicly but does not govern it. And member-facing content, which is an output of the system rather than an input to it.

the working agreement of the series

Nothing erased, everything succeeded. Every claim wears a mark. Dependency is the schedule. Agents draft and build; people decide. And the public page never says more than the shelf can back.