The Principia Machina/Inputs/Measure Set

The Principia Machina: map
Reading the diagrams Structure key Process key Definition of terms Roles
Reading by audience Start here: the walk through The operator's guide Tutorial: create a UUID Workspace Container (UWC) Public Recorder inputs Sponsors: your first agent
The specification Contents: parts, tables, diagrams TPS 0.5.0 (declared 2026-10-03, revision 8; machine-optimized text) Decisions (the foundations record, one line each)

Public Recorder inputs: a help set for the people who put things into The Principia Machina - authors of a new UWC, operators, and the declaring authority. It explains; the specification governs. Start at the index; for a guided walk from a blank file to a declared UWC, follow the tutorial. Agents read the agent-facing page instead.

Purpose

What you write in the third zone: the parameters the strike rule and the kernel tests need, the named constants, and any yardsticks.

Explains: TPS revision 6 (proposed as TPS 0.3.0 until the declaring authority declares it; it follows TPS 0.1.1, declared final on 2026-09-26), whose sections 2.2 to 2.5 carry the zone schemas with the optional declared form, the ROLE field, the D variable and the structure check (records D92.1, D98.1, D99.1, D100.1, D103.1-D105.1, D106.1-D108.1, D132.1, D176.1, D177.1, D179.1 and D186.1); TPC-PY as built at increment 10 (tpc_zone 0.5.0, tpc_units 0.1.1, tpc_tests 0.2.0, tpc_form 0.2.0, tpc_eom 0.1.0; schema 0.5.0; no TPC-PY version is declared yet) with check_draft 0.5.0. Where this page and the specification differ, the specification governs.

What the Measure Set is

The Measure Set (TMS) holds the numbers and conventions by which records in this UWC are compared and, when they conflict, ordered. It is entered last and is the last gate: every entry must pass the compliance check SR9 before the UWC can be certified. It is immutable once declared (TPS 2.4 and 4.5). It holds no physics: its constants weigh records, and never enter a law.

Three parts

PARAMETERS is required. CONSTANTS and YARDSTICKS may be left out, which means empty.

PARAMETERS

Field	Required	Form	What it sets
STEP_CONVENTION	yes	prose, not blank	what counts as one derivation step. Step counts, and so distances between records, are read under it (SR4).
K	yes	a decimal, as a string	the multiplier in the test of whether two measured values contradict (SR3).
N_X	yes	a whole number, not in quotes	how many independent contradictions of a standing record open an audit on it (SR6).
S_MAX	yes	a whole number, not in quotes	the depth that bounds T3. What the machine runs of T3 stops at depth 1; the rest of the search to S_MAX is inspection (TPS 2.2).
IC2_POLICY	no	GAP or REJECT	what an untied degree of freedom (DOF) does: recorded as a named gap, or refused. GAP when left out. Applied at the final pass.
PROMOTION_FLOOR	no	F1, F2 or F3	the falsifier class a result must reach to be promoted. F2 when left out (record D92.1). Corroboration does not gate promotion.
STRUCTURE_CHECK	no	ON or OFF	whether the structure check of the equations of motion runs at the final pass. ON when left out. OFF gives the label Structure not Validated at Inception, reason CHECK OFF, and runs no check at the gate (TPS 2.2.20).

The accepted range of each number is in TPS 2.4, and the lower bounds follow the strike rule (TPS 4.4); a value outside it is refused with a message that names it. Leaving out IC2_POLICY, PROMOTION_FLOOR or STRUCTURE_CHECK and writing its default give the same digest.

CONSTANTS

Objects with NAME and VALUE (a decimal, as a string). These are the named immutable constants a yardstick uses: a yardstick contains no literal numbers, so every weight it uses must be named here (SR9 C5). They are not the kernel's constants: a physical constant, such as a mass or the strength of gravity, goes in the Prime Kernel.

YARDSTICKS

A UWC's own ordering rules. They have a page of their own: Yardsticks.

The checks

The structure check runs now: fields present and of the right form, numbers inside their ranges, names unique, and every yardstick's key rules. Each yardstick then runs through the SR9 harness on the synthetic record suite. Then, with all three zones in hand, the final pass: T3 over the kernel's constraints and over the laws whose every name has a value, which needs S_MAX, and IC2_POLICY applied to any untied DOF the isomorphism checks held, and, with STRUCTURE_CHECK ON, the structure check. T3 over the assumptions, and over the laws beyond that, stays an inspection (TPS 2.2).

Not in the Measure Set

The project's declared parameters - the acquisition window, the canary schedule and the rest - apply across all of TPM and are not per UWC. They are in TPS 7.2 and are changed only by revising the specification.

Nor are a trajectory's initial or boundary values. The TFK carries none, and a law that states a DOF's value at one instant (x = x0) is a modelling error. Each initial or boundary value a result relies on is its own ASSUMPTION record in the register, cited by that result (TPS 3.2.15). Until the record field schema (C-16) lands, measured values of a DOF that no FIX constraint targets are compared by inspection, not tested mechanically under SR3 and SR8 (TPS 4.4.13).

Non-goals

A Measure Set may add precision or limiting-case rules. It may not relax the strike skeleton's first two clauses: the TFK is inviolable, and a record stands while it is consistent and uncontradicted (TPS 4.3).

Worked example

{
  "TMS": {
    "PARAMETERS": {
      "STEP_CONVENTION": "one application of an inference rule or algebraic identity is one step",
      "K": "2",
      "N_X": 2,
      "S_MAX": 10
    },
    "CONSTANTS": [
      {"NAME": "w_a", "VALUE": "1"},
      {"NAME": "w_s", "VALUE": "0.5"}
    ],
    "YARDSTICKS": [
      {
        "NAME": "combined_distance",
        "KEY": ["SR1", "WSUM:w_a*A;w_s*S", "S"],
        "LIMITING": []
      }
    ]
  }
}

The values here are the example's, chosen to be small; choose yours under TPS 4.4. The Measure Set says nothing about IC2_POLICY, PROMOTION_FLOOR or STRUCTURE_CHECK, so the structure check runs, an untied DOF would be a named gap and results need falsifier class F2 to be promoted. To see the policy work, add to the kernel a second coordinate across the axis, y, with its own equation of motion, EOM_Y: m d2y/dt2 = 0 with "ROLE": "EOM(y)", and give it no manifold entry (examples/spring_ic2_gap.json). The checker says:

     IC1-IC4 PASS with 1 untied DOF, held for the final pass
       IC2: DOF y is untied
FINAL T3 (constraints and laws) and IC2 PASS, admitted with 1 named gap (IC2_POLICY GAP)
       IC2: DOF y is untied

With "IC2_POLICY": "REJECT" in PARAMETERS (examples/spring_ic2_reject.json), the same draft is refused:

     IC1-IC4 PASS with 1 untied DOF, held for the final pass
       IC2: DOF y is untied
FINAL T3 (constraints and laws) and IC2 REFUSED, 1 problem
       IC2: DOF y is untied and IC2_POLICY is REJECT

Built step by step on tutorial step 4.

Governing sections: TPS 2.4, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5.

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Previous: The Translation Manifold. Next: Yardsticks.