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UCCA — ADR Lifecycle

The principle: a decision is binding when ruled; it is canonised when reality has agreed with it. An ADR that mints before its subject exists is a prediction wearing a record's clothes. Battle-tested six months on the client side; adopted here whole.

The three classes, and when each mints

Class F — records of existing fact. The ADR describes something already on disk or already true (a name, an entity structure, a verified violation). → Mints on verification. Evidence is bytes or documents, checked. Examples: ADR-0001 (UCCO naming — envelope verified on disk), ADR-0003 (two entities — corporate fact).

Class B — forward-looking build rulings. The ADR commits an architecture or code decision whose subject is not yet built (a boundary, an interface, a custody split). → Ruled now, binding immediately, mints at build proof — the subject exercised to terminal effect against the real thing (e.g. a conformer exercised against the live gate). Until proof, it is held in the register as ruling (pre-proof), citable and binding, but honest about what reality has not yet confirmed. Examples: the conformer/gate custody ruling; the warranty boundary as implemented behaviour. ADR-0002 is mixed: the violation it names is Class F (verified); the remedy it commits is Class B (mints when the input path severs worlds/ from the engine).

Class G — governance and process conventions. The ADR sets how the project itself operates (filing rules, exchange protocols, this lifecycle). → Mints on ratification. Its "build proof" is use; if practice breaks it, it is amended by a new ruling, never silently. Examples: FENCE-PROTOCOL adoption; this document.

Register consequences

  • The canon register's status column carries the class and state: ruled (B, pre-proof) / minted (F, verified 2026-07-01) / minted (G, ratified).
  • Nothing binding waits for minting — rulings bind from the moment Tim rules. Minting is an honesty marker about proof, not a permission gate.
  • When a Class B ruling reaches build proof, the ADR file gains a dated proof line (what was exercised, against what, verified by whom) and the register flips to minted.
  • Retro-classification of the existing set: ADR-0001 → F (minted), ADR-0003 → F (minted), ADR-0002 → F+B (violation minted; remedy pre-proof until the input path lands).

Convention adopted, not invented: proven on the other side of the fence, ruled across by the owner of both houses, authored home-side. Decisions bind when ruled; canon admits them when reality does.