Authority classification: Informative
Maturity: M0 (Foundation)
The Codessa Kernel is the single authoritative source for normative engineering knowledge in the Codessa system.
It defines the constitutional principles, operational invariants, governance processes, and execution contracts that all projections must obey.
Generated projections (Grok skills, Claude projects, CI configurations, MCP servers, etc.) are never authoritative.
Constitution
↓
Core Invariants
↓
Governance (Architecture Review Protocol)
↓
Execution Contract
↓
Technical Specifications (schemas, projection manifest)
↓
Projections (non-authoritative)
Normative authority flows strictly downward.
No lower-authority artifact may create, strengthen, or contradict a requirement established by a higher-authority artifact.
- Confidence must never exceed executable evidence.
- There is exactly one authoritative source (this Kernel).
- Generated projections are never authoritative.
- Every normative claim must identify an enforcement mechanism and its status.
- Every normative artifact must remain traceable to its constitutional source.
Full statements live in CONSTITUTION.md and invariants/CORE-INV.yaml.
All schemas and Kernel artifacts follow Semantic Versioning starting at 1.0.0.
| Change type | Version impact |
|---|---|
| Editorial, comments, examples | Patch |
| Backward-compatible additions | Minor |
| Breaking changes | Major |
Projections must declare both kernel_version and an explicit compatible_with range.
Every normative statement carries a stable identifier (e.g. ARP-POL-001, EC-CON-003, INV-004).
Identifiers are permanently reserved.
Deprecated statements are marked Deprecated and are never reused.
- Constitutional model: defined
- Core Invariants: defined
- Governance protocol: defined
- Execution contract: defined
- Technical schemas: defined
- Executable enforcement: Planned (not yet implemented)
Confidence remains low until validators exist that can automatically reject violations.
- No executable validators
- No projection generators
- No CI enforcement
- No multi-target compiler
- No knowledge graph
- No platform-specific logic inside the Kernel
Implement the first executable validators that can automatically reject Kernel artifacts violating Constitutional Axioms or Core Invariants.
That transition marks the point at which the Kernel moves from describing governance to enforcing it.