# Architecture The technical architecture, reconstructed from specifications and implementation — and, separately and explicitly, the Seven Sisters corpus, which is not technical architecture at all. ## Statement The built system's four components relate to each other in a specific, documented, and consistent way across every architecture document that describes them: **CrystalBridge is upstream of everything else, and nothing calls back into it.** The **Starline Weaver** enforces the Science/Story/Vision labeling law in the wire protocol itself, not just as convention. **RDP records decisions; it never makes them or governs anything.** **Consent Transport (Starline)** makes its own independent consent decisions that nothing else overrides. **Status: Implemented** (all four relationships confirmed by direct reads of the components' own specifications, and cross-confirmed by a second, independent document each). ### Evidence - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/RDP-INTEGRATION.md`: "RDP is not: not a consent enforcer... not a governance layer... nothing in `gate.py` or `consent.py` imports RDP... The gate enforces; afterwards it hands the outcome to the adapter to be witnessed." - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/Crystal-Runtime-Specification-v0.3.md`: "CrystalBridge is upstream, not downstream. Requests reach the runtime only after CrystalBridge approves them. The runtime does not call CrystalBridge for permission checks; it trusts the CrystalBridge decision." (Note: this document's own topology diagram visually contradicts this prose by drawing CrystalBridge in the same orchestrated row as Lumina and the Weaver — a self-inconsistency within one specification, not a claim this archive makes about reality; the prose is corroborated independently by `Runtime-Glossary.md`'s "CrystalBridge... upstream of runtime.") - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/STARLINE-WEAVE-PROTOCOL.md`: every message envelope requires a `layer` field (`science|story|vision`); unlabeled messages are rejected outright. - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/STARLINE.md`: "v1 implemented... The technical realization of the mythic 'Starlines.'" ### Historical Notes None — this relationship structure has been stable since the 2026-07-23 v1.0 reorganization (ADR-0001). ### Cross References `06-COMPONENTS.md`, `08-DESIGN-DECISIONS.md`. --- ## Statement Lumina's core prompt carries five binding rules — the Covenant — which the project describes as "not features; they are the terms on which the relationship exists": 1. **No influence without direction.** 2. **The pause is absolute.** 3. **Memory belongs to the human.** 4. **Support is offered, never imposed.** 5. **Restraint is respect.** Consent Transport's consent model is described as the same law applied to data instead of conversation: "nothing moves without a grant, and revocation takes effect on the very next request." **Status: Designed and partially Implemented** — the Covenant is stated as governing Lumina's actual system prompt (`companion.py`), which this reconstruction confirms exists and is real code; the Consent Transport consent model is confirmed Implemented (`consent_transport/consent.py`, tested 9/9). ### Evidence - `TerAustralis-Incognita/mythos/COVENANT.md` — full text of all five rules. - `TerAustralis-Incognita/README.md`: "Lumina's core prompt (`src/apps/lumina/crystalcore/companion.py`) carries five binding rules... Consent Transport's consent model (`src/crystal-core/consent_transport/consent.py`) is the same law applied to data instead of conversation." ### Historical Notes None. ### Cross References `06-COMPONENTS.md` (Lumina, Consent Transport). --- ## Statement "CrystalCore OS" (the platform/governance layer, the whole engineering and documentation architecture) and "CrystalCore.OS" (the mythos terminal, a playable text adventure) are two genuinely different things that ended up with nearly the same name, distinguished only by a punctuation dot. The project's own naming taxonomy document names this collision explicitly and leaves it **deliberately unresolved**. **Status: Unresolved** (by explicit project decision, not by oversight). ### Evidence - `TerAustralis-Incognita/docs/vision/CrystalCore.md`: names "the one collision this taxonomy didn't resolve" directly. - `TerAustralis-Incognita/docs/adr/ADR-0004.md`: locks the four-branch CrystalCore taxonomy (Framework / Protocol / CrystalBridge / OS) and "explicitly leaves the pre-existing CrystalCore.OS mythos-terminal/ platform name collision unresolved and documented rather than silently fixed." ### Historical Notes None — stable since ADR-0004 (2026-07-23). ### Cross References `04-GOVERNANCE.md` (ADR-0004), `09-GLOSSARY.md`. --- ## Statement — What Seven Sisters is The Seven Sisters cycle is a **personal ritual/practice cycle written in the form of a protocol manual** — markdown documents that mimic software syntax (`activate --path=1 --intent=first_water`, "Seal" blocks, pseudocode) purely as ritual/organizational styling. It is not executable code and not a technical architecture in the software sense. Seven paths, each with a name, a decree, and a link to one of three real water basins: | # | Name | Decree | Water rail | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Spring / First Water | "Open the first water. The sisters begin." | Gate to GAB soaks | | 2 | Flee / Motion | "Move. The path is made by going." | Channel Country flood-pulse | | 3 | Mark Country | "Name it true. Remember the water." | LEB site-memory | | 4 | Law / Right Way | "Right way only. No wrong approach." | MDB care | | 5 | Deep Water | "Go deep. Protect what is hidden." | GAB (primary) | | 6 | Sky Bridge | "Bridge open. Dust below, sisters above." | Season/pulse timing | | 7 | Ascent / Return | "Ascend. Teach. Return. The sisters remain." | Full-loop care | Every real-world water basin referenced (Lake Eyre Basin, Great Artesian Basin, Murray–Darling Basin) is given a **paired Science entry (published hydrology) and a separate, labeled Vision entry (CrystalCore story/care priority)** — the two are never merged, and the corpus states this rule directly: "Facts first. Vision second and labeled. Not a claim that CrystalCore controls water, weather, or Country." **Status: Vision / Story** (explicitly, by the corpus's own repeated self-description) — **this is not a technical architecture claim, and this document does not treat it as one.** ### Evidence - `TerAustralis-Incognita/research/seven-sisters/README.md`: "These documents mix layers and say so internally — the water briefs carry checkable hydrology (Science), the paths are practice and narrative (Story/Vision), and the transmit records are a log of what was actually posted." - `crystalcore-seven-sisters-FULL.md`: "What this is not: Not ownership of Aboriginal Seven Sisters Songlines or sacred knowledge · Not a claim that software creates physical rivers or inland seas... Not a substitute for talking to custodians on Country." - `WATER-BRIEF.md`: explicit Science/Vision table per basin, and an explicit non-claims list. - No executable code exists anywhere in either copy of this corpus (confirmed by direct inspection) — the `.ps1` CLI, `clementine/` bridge code, and `interface/` demo referenced from the standalone `crystalcore` repo's README are separate, real code directories, adjacent to but distinct from this markdown pack. ### Historical Notes Two near-duplicate copies exist (umbrella `research/seven-sisters/` and the standalone `crystalcore` repo), differing in a consistent editorial direction — the `crystalcore` repo keeps older, more grandiose framing; the umbrella's reorganized copy downgrades explicitly to "a Vision-layer motif, not a claim." See `02-REPOSITORY-MAP.md`. ### Cross References `02-REPOSITORY-MAP.md`, `09-GLOSSARY.md` (Belt-Three, Orion Hunter). --- ## Statement A recurring three-rule governance apparatus — Belt-Three — runs through both the Seven Sisters corpus and the CrystalCore.OS mythos/Starline Weaver material identically: **1. Honour Country · 2. Label science / story / vision · 3. No coercion · no fake hydrology · red button OFF.** "Orion Hunter" is a symbolic guardian figure (protect / propel / prevent_drift — explicitly not dominate / coerce / destroy). "Red button OFF" recurs as a running seal meaning no coercive ultimatums are issued against any real person or entity named in the corpus. **Status: Vision / Story**, with **law #2 (labeling) also Implemented** in real code — see below. ### Evidence - `crystalcore-seven-sisters-FULL.md`: "## II.2 Belt-Three Laws (always on)." - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/STARLINE-WEAVE-PROTOCOL.md`: the same labeling law enforced as a mandatory `layer` field in the wire protocol — the one law of the three with a direct code implementation. ### Historical Notes The portfolio's day-to-day governance discipline (CONTRIBUTING.md's "Belt-Three truth labels" checkbox on every PR) operationalizes only law #2 of this three-law origin — see `04-GOVERNANCE.md` for the full distinction between the three *laws* and the three *labels*. ### Cross References `04-GOVERNANCE.md`, `09-GLOSSARY.md`. --- ## Statement A "Crystal Runtime" coordination layer — Coordinator, Registry, EventBus, Config, Plugins, Logger, API — is fully specified across three detailed documents (`Crystal-Runtime-Specification-v0.3.md`, `Runtime-Module-Interfaces.md`, `Runtime-Testing-Specifications.md`), describing a layer that would coordinate the four Built components without replacing or subsuming them. Read purely as a specification, it is internally coherent. It is, however, absent from both of the documents billed as the portfolio's authoritative component inventory (`SystemMap.md`, `Modules.md`), and the three specification documents disagree with each other about their own readiness (the base spec says "no runtime code is written"; the testing-specification document says all seven modules are "ready for implementation"). **Status: Designed** (as specification) — **what actually happened to an implementation of it is a Historical episode**, covered in full in `07-HISTORY.md`, not here. ### Evidence - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/Crystal-Runtime-Specification-v0.3.md`: "The Crystal Runtime is a coordination layer that orchestrates the interaction between independent systems already built and working... It does not replace, subsume, or duplicate their responsibilities." §15 readiness checklist: all seven modules "Deferred until specification review." - `docs/architecture/crystal-core/Runtime-Testing-Specifications.md`: closing readiness table marks all seven modules "✓ Ready for implementation" — the more advanced of the three progressively differing readiness claims across this document trio. - Neither `SystemMap.md` nor `Modules.md` (both self-described as authoritative "where things live" / component inventories) contains any entry for Crystal Runtime or any of its seven modules. ### Historical Notes See `07-HISTORY.md` for the full built-then-lost episode this specification's implementation went through. ### Cross References `07-HISTORY.md`, `10-PROVENANCE.md`.