ORDOVA
Canon · The charter

On the context
that must not leak.

This document secures the explicit record of how one Hand works with the System, so that working context may be carried across every agent, model, and machine.

source: canon/README.md

Preamble

This is the charter of a portable working identity: a private, evolving record of how the Hand works with the System.

It establishes the explicit copy, the layers of the corpus, and the repositories that hold it, that the context built over time shall not be lost when the surface beneath it changes.


I
the explicit copy
ratified · amendable
Article

The record shall be written down.

What is held in memory shall also be set down in prose, that it may be re-read, shared, and revised.

The implicit version, grown from accumulated feedback, is faster but lossier. The Canon is the slow-but-durable copy: the explicit version of how the Hand works with the System, captured so that it can be carried.

No working context shall remain only in the head of the model. What can be said with conviction is written; what cannot be said is left as a deliberate gap, not an oversight.

charter README: "the slow-but-durable copy" of accumulated memory and feedback
II
context as capital
ratified · amendable
Article

Working context is professional capital.

AI working context shall be treated as a new category of professional capital, owned by the Hand and not by any agent, model, or employer.

That capital currently leaks every time the model, the agent, or the employer changes. The leak is structural, and the remedy must live on the user side, where the context is held and carried across each transition.

No part of this capital shall be entrusted to the surfaces that erase it. The fix is portability secured by the one party who persists.

thesis: AI working context leaks on model/agent/employer change; fix lives user-side
III
the layered corpus
ratified · amendable
Article

The Canon shall be ordered into layers.

The corpus shall descend from slow-moving belief to concrete instruction, each layer naming its own scope.

Principles hold the slow-moving beliefs about what matters. The cross-cutting invariants hold the non-negotiable defaults of operation. The framework and the architecture model the operating context and its three components: the charter as read-only memory, the executive as canonical state, the archive as state and concepts.

Beneath these sit the role corpora: developer, bot-operator, studio-operator, compliance-officer, code-reviewer, and writer. Each governs one stance the Hand takes, and no rule shall float free of the layer that gives it authority.

principles → invariants → framework/architecture → role corpora (developer, bot-operator, studio-operator, compliance-officer, code-reviewer, writer)
IV
three repositories
ratified · amendable
Article

The surface shall be split across three repositories.

The portable working identity shall be divided into three private repositories, each with its own lifecycle.

The charter holds the prose corpus. The executive holds the canonical state of the configuration: settings, agents, rules, skills, hooks, and plugins. The archive holds the vault as a real git checkout: handoffs, projects, daily notes, inbox, articles, drafts, and memory.

No single store shall carry the whole. Cross-repo work is tracked in the open, on the shared board, that the seams between them remain visible.

charter (prose) · executive (~/.claude state) · archive (vault checkout)
V
private by decision
ratified · amendable
Article

The Canon shall be private.

This record shall remain private, by deliberate decision and not by neglect.

It is personal professional capital, not open-source infrastructure. Its privacy is a choice made plainly, and reaffirmed each time the question is asked.

No clause herein is published for the benefit of others. The Canon serves the Hand that wrote it.

Why private: "Personal professional capital, not open-source infrastructure."
VI
experimental, revisable
ratified · amendable
Article

The structure shall remain open to change.

This is experimental work, and its structure shall change as conviction grows.

What is written reflects only what can be said with conviction today. Gaps are deliberate; they mark the edges of present certainty, not failures of care.

No clause shall be held immutable. The Canon shows its revisions in the open, and amends itself as the work teaches it to.

Status: "Experimental. Structure will change."

Ratification

These Articles may be amended in the open, as a charter shows its revisions.

ordova · canon/README.md · ratified

The cursor waits for the next hand.

© Async Digital Ltd