The Four Primitives
The kernel has exactly four primitives. Every intelligence system we've mapped — across every domain — decomposes into these four elements. Nothing more is needed. Nothing less works.
NODE
A binary thesis. A question that needs answering.
'Will Acme Corp close this quarter?' in sales. 'Does this patient have condition X?' in medicine. 'Does this contract contain liability Y?' in legal.
KPI
A condition that must be true for the thesis to succeed.
Budget confirmed. Authority identified. Clinical markers present. Contract clause verified.
SIGNAL
An atomic unit of observable evidence.
An email mentioning budget approval. A lab result. A clause in a document. Any piece of evidence that can be captured and traced.
WIRE
A typed connection between a signal and a KPI.
This email (signal) SUPPORTS the Budget KPI. This lab result CONTRADICTS the diagnosis. This clause UPDATES the liability assessment.
The KPI State Machine
Every KPI follows the same state progression. There are no shortcuts. There are no exceptions.
UNKNOWN — Every KPI starts here. No evidence has been presented. No claim has been made.
CLAIMED — AI has generated an assertion. Evidence has been wired. But no human has validated.
CONFIRMED — A human has reviewed the evidence and validated the claim. Traceable. Auditable. Proven.
The Human Gate
AI can suggest. AI cannot confirm. This is architectural, not procedural.
The transition from CLAIMED to CONFIRMED requires explicit human decision. This isn't a policy. It isn't a best practice. It's enforced in the state machine. There is no code path that allows AI to confirm its own assertions.
This is the core architectural innovation. Every other system treats human oversight as optional — a review step that can be skipped, automated, or forgotten. In the kernel, the gate is structural. You cannot reach CONFIRMED without a human.
Universality
The same four primitives. The same state machine. The same human gate. Every domain we've mapped decomposes into this structure.
Eight domains mapped. Same four primitives every time. The kernel is irreducible — it can't be simplified further without losing the ability to track trust state from assertion to validation.