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ASL/SYSTEM/1 — Unified ASL + TGK + PEL System View
Status: Draft Owner: Architecture Version: 0.1.0 SoT: No Last Updated: 2025-01-17 Linked Phase Pack: N/A Tags: [deterministic, federation, pel, tgk, index]
Document ID: ASL/SYSTEM/1
Layer: L2 — Cross-cutting system view (no new encodings)
Depends on (normative):
ASL/1-COREASL/1-CORE-INDEXASL/STORE-INDEX/1ASL/LOG/1ENC/ASL-CORE-INDEX/1
Informative references:
ASL/INDEX-ACCEL/1TGK/1— Trace Graph Kernel semantics- PEL draft specs (program DAG, execution receipts)
ASL/FEDERATION/1— core federation semanticsASL/FEDERATION-REPLAY/1— cross-node deterministic replayASL/DAP/1— domain admissionASL/POLICY-HASH/1— policy binding
© 2025 Niklas Rydberg.
License
Except where otherwise noted, this document (text and diagrams) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
The identifier registries and mapping tables (e.g. TypeTag IDs, HashId assignments, EdgeTypeId tables) are additionally made available under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0) to enable unrestricted reuse in implementations and derivative specifications.
Code examples in this document are provided under the Apache License 2.0 unless explicitly stated otherwise. Test vectors, where present, are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0.
0. Conventions
The key words MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHOULD, and MAY are to be interpreted as in RFC 2119.
ASL/SYSTEM/1 is an integration view. It does not define new encodings or storage formats; those remain in the underlying layer specs.
1. Purpose & Scope
This document aligns the cross-cutting semantics of:
- ASL index and log behavior
- PEL deterministic execution
- TGK edge semantics and traversal
- Federation visibility and replay
It ensures a single, consistent model for determinism, snapshot bounds, and domain visibility.
Non-goals:
- New on-disk encodings
- New execution operators
- Domain policy or governance rules
Middle layer (informative): the daemon/service boundary around core logic that owns network transport, admission workflows, and operational policy.
2. Core Objects (Unified View)
- Artifact: immutable byte value (ASL/1-CORE).
- PER: PEL Execution Receipt stored as an artifact.
- TGK Edge: immutable edge record linking artifacts and/or PERs.
- Snapshot + Log Prefix: boundary for deterministic visibility and replay.
- Domain Visibility: internal vs published visibility embedded in index records (ENC-ASL-CORE-INDEX).
All of these objects are addressed and stored via the same index semantics.
3. Determinism & Snapshot Boundaries
For a fixed (SnapshotID, LogPosition):
- Index lookup is deterministic (ASL/1-CORE-INDEX).
- TGK traversal is deterministic when bounded by the same snapshot/log position.
- PEL execution is deterministic when its inputs are bounded by the same snapshot/log position.
PEL MUST read only snapshot-scoped artifacts and receipts. It MUST NOT depend on storage layout, block packing, or non-snapshot metadata.
PEL outputs (artifacts and PERs) become visible only through normal index admission and log ordering.
PEL MUST NOT depend on physical storage metadata. It MAY read only:
- snapshot identity
- execution configuration that is itself snapshot-scoped and immutable
4. One PEL Principle (Resolution)
There is exactly one PEL: a deterministic, snapshot-bound, authority-aware derivation language mapping artifacts to artifacts.
Distinctions such as "PEL-S" vs "PEL-P" are not separate languages. They are policy decisions about how outputs are treated:
- Promotion (truth vs view) is a domain policy decision.
- Publication (internal vs published) is a visibility decision encoded in index metadata.
- Retention (store, cache, discard, recompute) is a store policy decision.
Implementations MUST NOT fork PEL semantics into separate dialects. Any classification of outputs MUST be expressed via policy, publication flags, or receipt annotations, not by changing the execution language.
5. PEL, PERs, and TGK Integration
- PEL programs consume artifacts and/or PERs.
- PEL execution produces artifacts and a PER describing the run.
- TGK edges may reference artifacts, PERs, or projections derived from them.
5.1 PERs and Snapshot State (Clarification)
PERs are artifacts that bind deterministic execution to a specific snapshot and log position. They do not introduce a separate storage layer:
- The sequential log and snapshot define CURRENT.
- A PER records that execution observed CURRENT at a specific log position.
- Replay uses the same snapshot + log position to reconstruct inputs.
- PERs are artifacts and MAY be used as inputs, but programs embedded in receipts MUST NOT be executed implicitly.
TGK remains a semantic graph layer; it does not alter PEL determinism and does not bypass the index.
6. Federation Alignment
Federation operates over the same immutable artifacts, PERs, and TGK edges. Cross-domain visibility is governed by index metadata:
domain_ididentifies the owning domain.visibilitymarks internal vs published.cross_domain_sourcepreserves provenance for imported artifacts.
Deterministic replay across nodes MUST respect:
- Snapshot boundaries
- Log order
- Domain visibility rules
Federation does not change PEL semantics. It propagates artifacts and receipts that were already deterministically produced.
Admission and policy compatibility gate foreign state: only admitted domains and policy-compatible published state may be included in a federation view.
7. Index Alignment
The index is the shared substrate:
- Artifacts, PERs, and TGK edges are all indexed via the same lookup semantics.
- Sharding, SIMD, and filters (ASL/INDEX-ACCEL/1) are advisory and MUST NOT change correctness.
- Tombstones and shadowing remain the only visibility overrides.
8. Glossary and Terminology Alignment (Informative)
To prevent drift across layers, the following terms map as:
- EdgeBody (
TGK/1-CORE) — logical edge content (from[],to[],payload,type). - EdgeArtifact (
TGK/1-CORE) — ASL Artifact whose payload encodes an EdgeBody. - EdgeRef (
TGK/1-CORE) — ASL Reference to an EdgeArtifact. - TGK index record (
TGK/1,ASL/1-CORE-INDEX) — index entry that makes an EdgeRef visible under snapshot/log rules; contains no edge payload. - TGK traversal result (
TGK/1) — snapshot/log-bounded set of visible edges (EdgeRefs) and/or node references derived from indexed EdgeArtifacts.
9. Summary
ASL/SYSTEM/1 provides a single, consistent view:
- One PEL, with policy-based output treatment
- TGK and PEL both bounded by snapshot + log determinism
- Federation mediated by index-level domain metadata
- Index semantics remain the core substrate for all objects