Governance

Status: Designed, not yet implemented.

Governance is the mechanism that prevents concurrent agents writing to shared state from degrading that state. Without it, a multi-agent memory system is concurrent writes with extra steps.

Evidence-based writes

A synthesis is a proposal backed by evidence — the source objects it consumed. Promotion to durable (structural) memory requires corroboration:

• Single-agent synthesis — stays in the operational region, decays at the default rate
• Cross-agent corroboration — two or more agents independently produce consistent results from different source material
• Human endorsement — a human marks a synthesis as structural
• Evidence threshold — configurable minimum number of sources and minimum aggregate confidence

Ground truth

Raw ingested data is retained as a reference baseline. When agents disagree about derived state, the source material is available for re-evaluation. This is what makes renewal possible — you need the original material to rebuild a degraded representation.

Tradeoff: Retaining all raw data indefinitely has storage costs. Archival and tiered storage strategies are specified in the Synixolis protocol but not yet implemented.

Conflict resolution

When objects contradict:

1. The conflict is surfaced (by an agent or automatic detection)
2. A resolution record is created linking both objects
3. An agent or human adjudicates
4. The rationale is recorded in the resolution object
5. The losing object is invalidated with a pointer to the resolution

Invalidated objects are retained, not deleted. Every conflict and outcome is visible in the event log.

Open question: How well does automated conflict detection work in practice? The mechanism is specified; its reliability is an empirical question.

Hypothesis tracking

An agent can write a hypothesis with explicit conditions:

• Validation condition: what would confirm it
• Invalidation condition: what would refute it
• Expiry: when to archive if neither condition is met

Other agents evaluate hypotheses against new evidence. Validated hypotheses promote. Invalidated ones are archived with counter-evidence attached.

Convention changes

The system’s rules can change through a formal process:

1. An agent proposes a change with evidence and rationale
2. The proposal requires consensus (quorum) or human approval
3. The old convention is superseded — not deleted — with a pointer to its successor
4. The change is recorded in the event log

Open question: What quorum size and approval mechanisms work well in practice? The protocol specifies the structure; the thresholds need empirical tuning.