nf.epistemic.location

Location Normal Form (LNF)

Contract ID: nf.epistemic.location | Family: epistemic | Index Status: draft | AuthorityEffect: None

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1. Executive Summary & Metadata

Location Normal Form (LNF) enforces structural normalization and explicit defect routing in the epistemic regime.

Property	Value
Canonical ID	nf.epistemic.location
Short Name	LNF
Full Name	Location Normal Form
Family	epistemic (Observer-Relative Epistemic, Freshness, Context, Provenance & Distinguishability Contracts)
Qualification	Extended Form Contract (Normal Form Contract)
Data / Math Posture	in_motion
Index Status	draft
Theory Status	proposed
Verification Status	absent
Contract Version	v0
Governance Fence	AuthorityEffect: None (certified_implies_authorized: false)

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2. Visual Architecture & Normalization Diagram

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3. Concrete Worked Example & Mechanism

Visual Transition Summary

Stage	Carrier / Operator	Concrete State / Invariant
1. Before / Candidate Input	Input Carrier (LNF Candidate)	Anomaly risk: ghost locality
2. Normalization / Gate	LNF Verification Gate	logical identity maps to... (certified_implies_authorized: false)
3. After / Certified Output	Certified LNF Output	Invariant: ['logical_identity', ; 'physical_placement', ; 'replica_set', 'storage_tier']

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4. The Four-Pillar Quadrilateral & Non-Claims

Every contract in simplex-normal-forms is evaluated against the Four-Pillar Quadrilateral defined in contracts/_golden_nfs/standard.yaml:

Pillar	Requirement	Contract Specification for nf.epistemic.location
Pillar I: Excludes Anomaly	Name and eliminate a specific class of data or state defects.	ghost locality
Pillar II: Preserves Invariant	State the structural invariant and protected skeleton preserved across transitions.	Invariant: logical identity maps to declared physical placement and movement policy Protected Skeleton: ['logical_identity', 'physical_placement', 'replica_set', 'storage_tier']
Pillar III: Lossless Reconstruction	State the non-loss reconstruction operator (join, direct sum, pullback, or replay).	Lossless reconstruction under declared projection, direct sum, or pullback operators.
Pillar IV: Syntactic Decidability	State how conformance is decided from declared constraints without unbudgeted scans.	Decidable from declared schema and witness metadata within bounded evaluation budgets.

Explicit Non-Claims (certified_implies_authorized: false)

• does not support data is correct only where it lives

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5. Operational Verification & Terminal Routing

5.1 Required Declarations

• logical_identity
• physical_locations
• replica_set
• storage_tier
• relocation_policy
• encryption_domain

5.2 Required Evidence

• placement_witness per location
• epoch or timestamp on placement claim

5.3 Validation Criteria

Criterion ID	Name	Condition
criterion	Check	every logical object has at least one declared location witness
criterion	Check	placement claims include timestamp or epoch
criterion	Check	relocation does not erase lineage
criterion	Check	unknown placement terminalizes

5.4 Terminal Route Map

Every evaluation terminates in a declared local route mapped to a canonical terminal in standard.yaml:

Local Terminal Route	Canonical Terminal
Located	Preserve
Relocating	Repair
LocationUnknown	BudgetUnknown
ReplicaDivergence	Escalate
Refuse	Refuse

5.5 Declared Failure Modes

• symptom: user told data is in table X but copy lives in cache WAL vector store, diagnosis: ghost locality, terminal: LocationUnknown

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6. Epistemic Claim Hygiene Quadrant

In accordance with the repository's epistemic claim discipline:

1. What it supports:
   • Supports syntactic and operational checking of nf.epistemic.location (LNF) against its declared schema, boundary constraints, and witness obligations in this model.
   • Supports deterministic terminal routing (Located, Relocating, LocationUnknown, ReplicaDivergence) when required declarations or invariants fail.
2. What it does not support:
   • Does not confer operational authority (AuthorityEffect: None, certified_implies_authorized: false).
   • Does not claim semantic truth of undeclared external processes or unverified upstream inputs beyond the declaredprotected skeleton.
3. The narrowest defensible claim:
   • Within the declared substrate in_motion, this contract enforces that ghost locality is either excluded under logical identity maps to declared physical placement and movement policy or routed to an explicit refusal/recovery terminal.
4. The next test needed:
   • Property-based falsification and mutation testing across boundary edge cases and composed multi-step pipelines for nf.epistemic.location.

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7. Canonical YAML Contract (contracts/nf.epistemic.location.yaml)

Click to expand full canonical YAML contract (contracts/nf.epistemic.location.yaml)

schema_version: smplx.nf.contract.v0
contract_kind: normal_form_contract
identity:
  id: nf.epistemic.location
  name: Location Normal Form
  short_name: LNF
  version: v0
  status: draft
  family: epistemic
  theory_status: proposed
  contract_status: draft
  verification_status: absent
classification:
  hierarchy_level: normal_form
  subject_kind:
  - distributed_claim
  data_posture: in_motion
  mathematical_posture: operational
purpose:
  excludes_anomaly: ghost locality
  preserves_invariant: logical identity maps to declared physical placement and movement
    policy
  protected_skeleton:
  - logical_identity
  - physical_placement
  - replica_set
  - storage_tier
  erased_structure: []
  non_claims:
  - does not support data is correct only where it lives
declarations_required:
- logical_identity
- physical_locations
- replica_set
- storage_tier
- relocation_policy
- encryption_domain
evidence_required:
- placement_witness per location
- epoch or timestamp on placement claim
validation_criteria:
- every logical object has at least one declared location witness
- placement claims include timestamp or epoch
- relocation does not erase lineage
- unknown placement terminalizes
proof_obligations: []
terminal_routes:
- Located
- Relocating
- LocationUnknown
- ReplicaDivergence
- Refuse
certification:
  certificate_required: true
  certificate_kind: placement_certificate
  obstruction_class_required: false
  loss_ledger_required: conditional
  verifier_required: true
authorization:
  authorized_by: null
  certified_implies_authorized: false
failure_modes:
- symptom: user told data is in table X but copy lives in cache WAL vector store
  diagnosis: ghost locality
  terminal: LocationUnknown
references:
- ../1_normal_forms.md
terminal_route_map:
  Located: Preserve
  Relocating: Repair
  LocationUnknown: BudgetUnknown
  ReplicaDivergence: Escalate
  Refuse: Refuse
definition:
  source: coda_all_universe/mssn_sn_tower/definitions.md
  formal_statement: ghost locality. logical identity maps to declared physical placement
    and movement policy
  quadrilateral:
    qualifies_as_true_normal_form: false
    qualification_gap: reconstruction_is_not_a_relational_project_join
    anomaly_exclusion: ghost locality
    lossless_join:
      status: declared_reconstruction
      statement: logical identity maps to declared physical placement and movement
        policy
    dependency_preservation:
      status: declared_with_the_invariant
      statement: The preserved invariant stays on the declared schema. This form does
        not state a functional-dependency projection of a flat relvar decomposition.
    syntactic_decision:
      status: declaration_decidable
      statement: The check reads the declared constraints and validation criteria.
        One unrecorded runtime image is not the decider.
schema_ref: ./normal_form_contract_schema.yaml