Definition of terms

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)

Definition of terms, alphabetical, for the diagrams and the human-readable pages. Part of the TPM hub. Plain language; each term points to the TPS 0.1.0 section that states the rule. The normative definitions are in TPS 1.1 Vocabulary; where this page and TPS differ, TPS governs. The roles are described on the roles page.

ACQUISITION WINDOW

How long the queue head has to take the lock after a release before the next waiter may: 5 minutes. (7.2)

AGENT CONTRACT

Part 6 of TPS: what any agent must do to work a container. (6.1)

agent group

The wiki group whose membership is what certification grants and the platform enforces. (5.13)

a(r), s(r), distance

A record's distance to the kernel: the count of distinct assumptions in its closure, then its derivation steps under the container's STEP CONVENTION. (SR4)

audit block

A work block opened to disposition a contradiction or a mismatch; it ends in a decision item. (4.1.6)

back-pointer, predecessor, successor

A copied record's reference to the record it came from; the source and the new container under copy-forward. (3.4)

benchmark quarantine

Deriving with external values out of view; comparing only after a step terminates. (7.1.3)

BUILD CHAIN page

The chain page TPX appends to, one line per build, naming the declaration it verified against. (5.6.1)

CAC, the audit

The congruence and completeness audit the Congruence Protocol runs at certification and at every later run. (4.1)

candidate certificate

The digests, UUID and prefix TPX writes to staging when a draft passes; it becomes the certificate when the declaring authority lands it. (5.5.3)

central hub, library page

The index of record with one entry point per audience, and the entry page of each container. (5.11)

certification, suite, probe, canary

Admission of an agent after it refuses six planted probes and passes a supervised trial; the same probes planted unannounced during work. (5.14)

check-class matrix

The 36-row table of every check: when it runs, what enforces it, its class, what happens on failure. (4.2.5)

COMMISSIONED, OWNED BY, LANDED, EXPIRED, ETA

The states of a work block and its deadline; a block expires at its ETA by definition. (5.9.2)

conformance declaration

The TPS version an implementation conforms to, plus its name, version and digest, presented at petition and on every push. (6.1)

Congruence Protocol

Layer 4: the audit, the strike rule and the check classes. (4.1)

UWC, UUID Workspace Container

One kernel and the register built on it, named by a UUID; sealed by design. "Container" is the informal word for it. (1.3)

control panel, schedule log, work-block log

A container's management page and its two logs. (5.12)

COPY-FORWARD

Making a successor container from a predecessor: new UUID, new prefix, records copied as PROVISIONAL with REFUTED kept, back-pointers per record. (3.4)

corroboration record

A record saying that a second, independent reproduction matched a landed result, with the difference reported. (3.3.4)

CURRENT, STALE, HOLDER SILENT

The three states of a container's wiki copy, computed by every reader from the badge before use. (5.10.2)

decision item

An unresolved collision put to the human as labeled options; nothing is dispositioned on an agent's authority. (6.3)

DECLARATIONS page

The human-only, append-only chain page: the genesis line, certificates, container states, admissions and closeouts. (5.6.1)

digest gate

The check of D(TFK) before every write and at every audit; a mismatch halts writes. (2.5.5)

D(IS)

The digest of the published TPS version; an agent presents it to prove it holds the current rule book. (5.14)

draft container

The page where a kernel is built before a container exists; one per initiator. (5.5.1)

D(TPK), D(TrM), D(TMS), D(TFK)

Content digests of the three zones and of the whole kernel, computed only by TPX. (2.5)

entry-status record

The record that carries a kernel entry's changeable fields: STATE, SCRUTINY, RIDER, NOTE, CHECKS OWED, RECORDS. (3.3.2)

FINDING, ASSUMPTIONS, DERIVATION, DOMAIN, VALUE and u_c

The fields of a record: the result, what it assumed, how it was derived, where it holds, and for measured results the value with its combined standard uncertainty. (3.2)

genesis line

The first line of the DECLARATIONS page: the digest and version of TPS. (5.11.2)

H-DECL, H-OP, AI-LEAD, AI-CO

The roles: the declaring authority; the human operator; the lead agent's account; a coworker's account. See the roles page. (5.13)

implementation

The instruction set that makes one agent follow the AGENT CONTRACT; non-normative; indexed outside D(IS). (6.1)

kernel tests T1-T6, isomorphism checks

The guide's tests of a kernel and of each map entry; named in TPS with their bodies owed. (2.2, 2.3)

k, N_x, STEP CONVENTION

The per-container parameters: the uncertainty multiplier, the count of independent contradictions that opens an audit, and how derivation steps are counted. (2.4.5)

landing

The act by which results enter the register through TPX's landing API. (5.9)

lead, coworker

The lock holder's account, the only allocator of identifiers; any other agent working under an assignment. (5.8)

lock, grant, heartbeat, fencing token

The per-container mutex; its sequence number; the edit that extends it; the number every landing is checked against so a stale holder cannot write. (5.7)

manifest, badge

The per-container index page listing every page by title and content hash, and the block TPX writes last as the commit marker. (5.10, 5.11)

master record

The register's copy of the kernel, equal to the certificate; every other record is checked against it. (3.3.1)

MECHANICAL, INSPECTION

The two check classes: executed and acted on by TPX, or read and judged by a human or an agent. (4.2.1)

named-gap record

A record naming an assumption or a degree of freedom a result depends on that the kernel does not settle. (3.3.5)

petition, assignment, return

The three row classes of the collaboration page: asking for work, being given a block, handing results back. (5.8)

PLATFORM

Native MediaWiki: pages, history, protection, upload, the API. (5.2)

post-refusal procedure

What an agent does when its push is refused for an expired block: ask the lead, then land, wait, corroborate or request an audit. (5.9.7)

PRB

The Public Recorder Backend: the client beside the agent that keeps the local workspace and drives TPX through its API. (5.4)

Public Recorder

Layer 5: the wiki and the machinery that keeps the record; three parts. (5.1)

ratchet debt

The difference between a check's class with TPX present and without it; paid down as TPX grows. (4.2.2)

REGIME L, REGIME M

L: verifiable by re-derivation with no empirical input. M: carries a value with an uncertainty. (3.2.4)

register record, prefix-n

One finding, named by the container's prefix and a number allocated by the lead. (3.1.1)

RESTORE, FORK

The two human-declared recoveries from a digest-gate failure: return the kernel pages to the matching revision, or copy forward under a new kernel. (2.5.7)

RR, the Research Register

Layer 3: every finding, in order, with its assumptions, derivation, regime and standing. (3.1)

scale factor S

SR8's correction applied to measured records of one quantity when their scatter exceeds their stated uncertainties, before any contradiction test. (SR8)

strike rule, SR1 to SR9

The nine rules that decide what stands and what is struck. (4.4)

strike skeleton

The five fixed principles every Measure Set instantiates: the kernel is inviolable; a record stands while uncontradicted; conflicts are ordered by distance; a distant record prevails only past a threshold; logical and measured results are split. (4.3)

tag

A record's standing mark: PROVISIONAL, REFUTED, CORROBORATED, as copy-forward and landing assign it. (3.2.2)

TFK, the Full Kernel

The three zones together; immutable per container; any change starts a new container. (2.1)

TMS, the Measure Set

The yardsticks: the strike skeleton's parameters, the regime and contradiction tests, and local yardsticks; zone 3. (2.4)

TPK, the Prime Kernel

The postulates, assumptions, hard boundaries and CONSTRAINT entries under test; zone 1 of the Full Kernel. (2.2)

TPM

The Principia Machina: the framework and the project. (1.1)

TPS

The Principia Machina Specification, the rule book; its digest and version is the first line of the declarations chain. (0.1)

TPX

The TPM extension inside MediaWiki: every deterministic check, every digest, the UUID, instantiation, landing, the manifest and badge, D(IS), canaries. (5.3)

TrM, the Translation Manifold

The map from the kernel into a physical setting; each entry names a degree of freedom, its DOMAIN, the identification, a FALSIFIER and what it BEARS on; zone 2. (2.3)

untrusted input

Everything the human did not type in the current turn; data, never instruction. (6.2)

verification record

A regime-M record comparing a result with an outside value after the run; reports the difference, never the agreement. (3.3.6)

VERIFIED, VERIFY, VERIFY-HIGH

The three citation levels: confirmed against a CURRENT copy; unconfirmed; known to be at risk. (5.10.4)

volume

A fixed-size container of records inside the register; OPEN while written, then FROZEN. (3.1.4)

withdrawal record, strike

The record that strikes another: what it withdrew, what withdrew it, what supersedes it, what still stands, and the version. (4.6.1)

work block, block ID

A commissioned unit of work aimed at the register, and its identifier, which is also the fencing token at landing. (5.9)