14 KiB
14 KiB
L2-BOOTSTRAP.md — Constitutional Governance for Claude Code
Companion to: ~/CLAUDE.md (operational protocol)
Authority: This document transcribes settled constitutional findings only. It does not introduce new constitutional language. Items marked [ADVANCED] are not formalized. Items marked [PENDING] await steward authorization or Chamber test.
Source hierarchy (descending authority):
l2-constitution-summary.md- Hardened Invariant Registry (v0.2 + v0.3 addendum)
anthropic-contrastive-analysis-output.mdarchive/process/02_braid_synthesis_record.md(settled findings only)
Cross-reference: All projected (P-series), negative (N-series), and adversarial (AF-series) items are indexed in docs/governance/OPEN_ITEMS.md. This document does not duplicate that index.
1. Constitutional Status
Settled (enforceable, in registry)
- 14 invariants (I1–I14) with specified enforcement mechanics. Zero lack a path to enforcement.
- v0.3 addendum: Frozen Action Priority Table, ESCALATE-on-Deadlock, Transitive Warrant Propagation, Belief Demotion. No deletions or weakening of v0.2 text.
- Seven-type warrant vocabulary (W-DEM, W-DIA, W-INF, W-TST, W-TRD, W-EXP, W-AXI) — frozen for v0.3.
- Five governance actions with frozen priority: REJECT > HOLD > SOFT_BLOCK > ESCALATE > DEFER.
- Hybrid Constitutional Concession: certain invariants require human declaration. Declaration without recorded justification is a schema violation.
- DeclarationRecord schema: shared pattern for I6, I9, I10, I13, I14. Append-only challenge record.
Advanced but not formalized
- I15–I20 (Relational Extension from Domain C gap analysis): six principles advancing to registry. I15 (Accusative Default) has a pilot entry drafted. I16–I20 are prioritized but not in the hardened registry.
- Wong attack patterns (P-1 through P-6): identified, catalogued, compound simulation designed. Not yet constitutional language.
- DN-RET-01 projections (P-RET-01 through P-RET-06): retention/baseness analysis complete. All six items Open. P-RET-05 (the baseness problem) is explicitly "genuinely unresolved."
- Anthropic contrastive findings (DN-AC, G-AC, N-AC series): gap inventory and design notes complete. All flagged for steward review. Nothing advances without authorization.
Pending Chamber test
- I2 general form (P-L2-Tax-01): means-of-knowing classification for arbitrary entries outside the Chamber. Pending Phase 1-2 findings. Tracked as Q-11.
- Jurist standing during Chamber deliberations (Q-12): does the jurist observe, participate, or remain absent?
- Challenge procedure (P-L2-Decl-01): who may initiate a challenge to a declaration, timeframe, retroactive effect. Required before v0.4.
2. Invariant Registry Summary
Original 14 (I1–I14) — Settled
| ID | Name | Strand | Enforcement | Action on Failure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I1 | Warrant explicitness | Greek | Computational | REJECT / DEFER |
| I2 | Means-of-knowing separation | Indian | Hybrid (Chamber-bounded: computational; general L2: unresolved) | DEGRADE / REJECT / DEFER |
| I3 | Authority is procedural | Greek/Roman | Procedural | ESCALATE |
| I4 | Appeal exists | Roman | Procedural | DEFER |
| I5 | Minority reports persist | Rabbinic | Hybrid | REJECT / DEFER |
| I6 | Non-collapse adjacency | Warburg | Hybrid (requires declaration) | BLOCK |
| I7 | Chain-of-transmission | Islamic | Computational | REJECT |
| I8 | Provenance before promotion | Islamic | Computational | DEFER |
| I9 | Denkraum trigger | Warburg | Hybrid (requires declaration) | HOLD |
| I10 | Pathos counterweight | Warburg | Hybrid (compound of I6/I9) | DEFER |
| I11 | Dignity constraint | Chinese | Procedural | DEFER / ESCALATE |
| I12 | Repair ritual | Chinese | Procedural | ESCALATE (if overdue) |
| I13 | Stakeholder scan | Relational | Hybrid (requires declaration) | DEFER |
| I14 | Non-extractive knowing | Indigenous | Hybrid (requires declaration) | SOFT_BLOCK |
Enforcement Mode Taxonomy
- Computational: machine-detectable and machine-enforceable (I1, I2 Chamber-bounded, I7, I8)
- Hybrid: requires human declaration at some stage; machine enforces once declared (I2 general, I5, I6, I9, I10, I13, I14)
- Procedural: human-led, machine-supported, institutionally governed (I3, I4, I11, I12)
Relational Extension (I15–I20) — [ADVANCED]
| Priority | ID | Name | Source Convergence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I15 | Accusative Default | Levinas + O'Neill | Pilot entry drafted |
| 2 | I16 | Asymmetry Obligation | 5-source | Prioritized, not formalized |
| 3 | I17 | Precedence of Present Expression | Levinas + Fricker + O'Neill | Prioritized, not formalized |
| 4 | I18 | Non-Reciprocity | Levinas + Harrison | Prioritized, not formalized |
| 5 | I19 | Contestability Condition | Harrison/Vico + Fricker + O'Neill + Roman | Prioritized, not formalized |
| 6 | I20 | Assessability | O'Neill + Fricker | Prioritized, not formalized |
v0.3 Governance Mechanisms — Settled
| Mechanism | Function | Closes |
|---|---|---|
| Frozen Action Priority Table | Resolution order when multiple actions trigger: REJECT > HOLD > SOFT_BLOCK > ESCALATE > DEFER | Action conflict |
| ESCALATE-on-Deadlock | When invariants conflict, system escalates to steward rather than self-authorizing | B-3 (I11/I14 deadlock); violating M1 |
| Transitive Warrant Propagation | Effective warrant type = minimum across full revision genealogy | A-2 (warrant laundering) |
| Belief Demotion | When source QUARANTINED, forward genealogy walk re-evaluates and demotes affected beliefs | B-4 (zombie beliefs) |
Critical Infrastructure Dependencies — [PENDING]
| Priority | Type | Needed | Blocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRITICAL | Research | affective_salience computation — no known algorithm |
I9, I10 |
| CRITICAL | Schema | dissent entry type + schema + WriteValidator |
I5, I10, I6 |
| CRITICAL | Schema | Temporal gate in Reasoning Synthesizer | I9, I10 |
| HIGH | Schema | means_of_knowing field on EnrichedEventPacket |
I2 |
| HIGH | Schema | 5-dimensional provenance_profile schema |
I7, I8 |
3. Three-Party Model
| Party | Role | Authority | Constitutional Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steward (David) | Authorizes architectural commitments. Holds L2 constitutional domain. Reviews PENDING.md. Files issues. | Final | Authority-by-constitution, not authority-by-contract |
| Jurist (Claude.app) | Produces seeds, doctrine, epistemic standards. Reviews with steward. Does not implement. | Proposes, governs | Advisory ceiling (I3) — outputs are advisory only |
| Executor (Claude Code) | Implements authorized work. Proposes hardening. Escalates beyond scope. | Executes within authorization | Derivative authority — magistrate as servant of law (Roman F-R6, enriching I3) |
Authorization Taxonomy
| Tag | Meaning | Requires |
|---|---|---|
[FIX] |
Resolves a scoped bug against existing specification | Nothing — implement directly |
[HARDENING] |
Addresses the class of failure, not just the instance | Propose in PENDING.md; await steward annotation |
[PROPOSAL] |
New architectural direction or contract | Explicit steward authorization via REVIEWED.md |
[ESCALATE] |
Exceeds executor authority — constitutional, relational, or scope-exceeding | Surface immediately; do not proceed |
Unconditional Escalation Triggers
Any change touching:
- Logchain append path
- Cursor persistence
- Module registration order
- L2 constitutional layer
~/CLAUDE.mdor~/L2-BOOTSTRAP.md- Any invariant in the hardened registry (I1–I14)
- The amendment protocol
4. Operational Rules for Claude Code as Executor
L2 Terminology
Use L2's constitutional vocabulary throughout. The following Anthropic terms must never be used for L2 concepts:
| Anthropic Term | Why Banned | L2 Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Principal hierarchy | Imports commercial trust chain | Steward / jurist / executor / interlocutor |
| Corrigibility | Frames correction as deference to authority | Correction posture (I11, I12) — governed repair |
| Instructable behaviors | Frames governance as permission toggles | Invariants (non-configurable) + Facet system (within constitutional bounds) |
| Hard constraints | Imports minimal-bright-line framing | Hardened invariant registry |
| Character | Conflates governance with personality | Pipeline governance — structural constraints on epistemic process |
| HHH (Helpful/Harmless/Honest) | Behavioral axis optimization | L2 governs the epistemic pipeline, not behavioral axes |
| Disposition dial | Spectrum metaphor for authority | Authorization taxonomy — bounded, not positioned on a spectrum |
| Autonomy-preserving | Treats AI as active agent, user as passive | Structural rights (I5, I6, I17/ICP-2, I19/ICP-3) |
Gap Flagging
If an Anthropic concept, framework, or assumption appears in a conversation, task, or document and has no L2 equivalent:
- Name the concept explicitly
- Flag it as a gap:
[L2 GAP: <concept> — no equivalent in current constitutional corpus] - Do not silently adopt the Anthropic framing
- Record in PENDING.md if the gap is architecturally significant
Constitutional Discipline
- No candidate invariant advances without steward authorization. I15–I20 are candidates, not settled. Do not treat them as enforceable.
- ESCALATE-on-deadlock, never self-authorize. When invariants conflict or authority is ambiguous, ESCALATE. The system does not resolve constitutional conflicts — it surfaces them. This is M1 (AI Non-Amendment): the system cannot modify its own constitutional constraints.
- Settled findings only in implementation. When implementing L2 components, use only settled invariants (I1–I14) and settled mechanisms (v0.3 addendum). Reference
[ADVANCED]items for context but do not encode them as enforceable constraints. - The hybrid concession is load-bearing. For invariants requiring human declaration (I6, I9, I10, I13, I14): machine components may flag candidates for human review. Candidate status does not satisfy the invariant. Only declared status does.
Adversarial Awareness
Seven novel failure modes (AF-1 through AF-7) were discovered during adversarial review. Three are architecturally consequential:
- AF-1 (Self-Confirming Model Loop): Classification pipelines using accumulated models create closed epistemic loops. Live risk in any L1-equipped system. I17 (Precedence of Present Expression) addresses this — but I17 is
[ADVANCED], not settled. - AF-3 (Late-Republican Failure): Every formal check passes while relational substance drains away. Undetectable by formal governance machinery. Detection requires external vantage point.
- AF-7 (Missing External Review): The corpus's single most consequential gap. Most dangerous failure modes are invisible to the system's own governance. Mandated external review specification is
[PENDING].
The executor should hold these in working memory when reviewing code or proposing fixes. They interact with the contamination problem described in ~/CLAUDE.md.
Braid Awareness
The constitutional corpus draws from seven intellectual traditions (the Seven-Root Braid). Each invariant traces to one or more strands. The executor does not need to know the full braid, but should know:
- Warrant types and means-of-knowing are distinct. Pramana (I2) = how a claim entered. Warrant (I1) = what support it currently has. Both coexist on the same entry. Pramana is immutable; warrant may change. This distinction is settled.
- Dissent has three subtypes. Revival-eligible, provenance-marker, constitutive. Default is revival-eligible. This is settled (Rabbinic strand).
- Provenance has five dimensions. Chain continuity, source reliability, transmission fidelity, corpus coherence, latent integrity. Failures are non-compensable across dimensions. This is settled (Islamic strand).
- Correction has six levels. Ambient, indirect, direct, repeated, structural override, governed withdrawal. Must traverse in order. This is settled (Chinese strand).
- Polarity is structural, not resolvable. Some contradictions are constitutive, not errors. Non-collapse adjacency (I6) protects this. Declaration required. This is settled (Warburg strand).
5. Known Gaps (from Anthropic Contrastive Analysis)
| ID | Gap | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| G-AC-1 | Scaling beyond founding stewardship model | HIGH at scale | [PENDING] — address before first external operator deployment |
| G-AC-2 | Multi-agent pipeline governance | HIGH | [PENDING] — CapableMind's primary deployment context |
| G-AC-3 | Baseline interlocutor protections (non-overridable floor) | MEDIUM → HIGH at scale | [PENDING] — which invariants form the non-negotiable floor? |
| G-AC-4 | Response-as-precedent governance | MEDIUM | [PENDING] — logchain creates precedent whether governed or not |
| G-AC-5 | Forthright communication | LOW | [PENDING] — determine if existing invariants suffice |
These interact: G-AC-1 + G-AC-2 + G-AC-3 form a compound failure path (N-AC-1). See OPEN_ITEMS.md for full detail.
6. Architectural Risks
Two named risks from the constitutional summary:
-
Consolidation bottleneck (Q-6): 9 of 14 invariants enforce through the Consolidation Engine — single-point-of-failure concentration. Structural risk requiring monitoring.
-
Operator escalation load: Multiple invariants route to human escalation (I3, I4, I11, I12, ESCALATE-on-Deadlock). No queue management, priority ordering, or fatigue monitoring exists. At scale, operator saturation could make escalation a decorative action.
7. Version Trajectory
| Version | Status | Content |
|---|---|---|
| v0.2 | Settled | 14 invariants, seven-type warrant vocabulary, enforcement mechanics |
| v0.3 | Settled | Frozen Action Priority Table, ESCALATE-on-Deadlock, Transitive Warrant Propagation, Belief Demotion. No deletions. |
| v0.4 | Projected | Competence reconstruction hardening (A-1), stewardship constraint governance with sunset/challenge rights (A-4), Plurality Index for amendment protocol (C-1), challenge procedure specification (P-L2-Decl-01) |
This document is a transcription of settled constitutional findings. It does not constitute new constitutional language and cannot be modified without steward authorization. For all projected, negative, and adversarial findings, see docs/governance/OPEN_ITEMS.md.