GOS 0 Constitution

GOS-0 · Governance Constitution

Answers: how does the system stay aligned as it grows?

The scale layer. Add it when the number of agents grows past what one person can watch — the point at which a system slowly becomes something you did not intend.

What it defines

• Seven branches — separation of powers across the system
• Six modes — operating postures the system can be in
• The self-improvement loop — the Capability Request: how the system acquires new abilities without rewriting its own rules
• 19 constitutional laws — the invariants that never bend

The five laws required for conformance

An implementation claiming L3 (Governed) MUST enforce at minimum:

ID	Law
GOS-0.01	Separation of powers — no component legislates, executes, and judges at once
GOS-0.02	Accountability — every consequential action is attributable to an accountable actor
GOS-0.15	Human decides — irreversible decisions rest with a person
GOS-0.16	Honest failure — a blocked agent reports the block; it never fakes completion
GOS-0.17	Capability = constitutional act — the system may grow abilities, but may not rewrite its own rules

The remaining laws are RECOMMENDED, and REQUIRED for the governmental-scale profile.

Capability as a constitutional act

GOS-0.17 is the deepest idea here. A system that can grant itself new capabilities on its own authority has no ceiling — every safety property becomes temporary. Making capability acquisition a constitutional act means growth is possible, but must pass through the governance layer, the same way GPS-2 Permission forbids an agent from widening its own grants.

Growth is allowed. Self-authorisation is not.

Separation of powers, concretely

flowchart LR
    H(("Human<br/>principal"))
    L["Legislative<br/><i>writes the rules · edits grants</i>"]
    E["Executive<br/><i>does the work</i>"]
    J["Judicial<br/><i>checks compliance</i>"]
    H --> L
    H --> J
    L -. constrains .-> E
    J -. audits .-> E

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An agent that could do all three at once would be, in effect, ungoverned — however well-behaved it happened to be on any given day.

Honest failure is a governance property, not a courtesy

GOS-0.16 is the law the rest of the stack leans on. GTS-1 Task State can forbid marking a task done early, but only an honest actor reports why it stopped. A system that fakes completion corrupts every audit trail above it — the records exist and they are wrong, which is worse than having none.

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